"Both matches this weekend were vital in order for us to reach our ultimate goal, to win the Ivy League championship," libero Amanda Marston '10 said.
Dartmouth has four games versus conference opponents remaining.
Against Brown (4-14, 2-6 Ivy), Dartmouth failed to take advantage of opportunities early on. After claiming an early 19-9 lead in the first game, the Big Green allowed Brown to rally to a 30-27 win behind several Dartmouth attack errors. The Big Green never led during the next game, quickly falling behind 0-2 in the match.
After commanding the first two games, however, Brown hit just .088 to Dartmouth's .190 in the third. The Big Green halved the match deficit to 1-2 behind kills by Morgan Covington '10 and Megan MacGregor '10. The third game's score was 30-21.
"It is tough to recover from that kind of momentum shift but our team did a really good job 'imposing our will upon the other team,' as our coach Ann Marie [Larese] would say," Marston said.
The Big Green rebounded from a slow start in the fourth to tie the game at 17-17. Successive kills by Covington, Sandy Barbut '08 and Kelsey Johnson '11 broke it open, and Dartmouth went on to take the game 30-23.
Dartmouth closed out the match in the fifth game, punctuated by a quick set-kill by captain Katie Hirsch '08 and Covington. Covington finished with a match-high attack percentage of .480.
Also contributing to the win were two players tallying double-doubles -- MacGregor (13 kills, 22 digs) and Whitney Ward (12 kills, 12 digs).
Dartmouth hoped to parlay momentum from the Brown game into a win against Yale (13-5, 7-2 Ivy), a tough league rival coming off four straight wins. The Big Green needed a victory to tie Penn for second-most wins in the league.
As with the Brown match, Marston explained that the game plan was "to funnel the hitters to left back" to set up a solid block the defense could "read around." Dartmouth succeeded in setting up the block, and consequently Marston picked up her second straight 30-plus dig performance.
Although Dartmouth out-blocked Yale 15-12, it was unable to pull off a victory. The Bulldogs mounted a two-game comeback to beat the Big Green 28-30, 30-24, 30-23, 26-30, 13-15 in front of a home crowd. It was Dartmouth's second straight five-gamer and fourth this season. Yale had not gone the distance in a match since 2006.
The nearly two-and-a-half hour match was marked by numerous lead changes and pressure situations. In the first game alone the teams were tied five times. Ultimately Dartmouth could not maintain a 28-25 edge in that game, giving up five straight points. In the second game, the Big Green pulled ahead to tie the match behind a five-kill effort by MacGregor in a game that saw six lead changes.
Barbut helped secure a win in the third game. Following a 16-16 tie, her seven straight digs keyed a six-point rally. Yale called two quick timeouts in response but failed to surmount a lead that peaked at eight points. With a 30-23 win, Dartmouth went ahead 2-1 in the match.
The Bulldogs came from behind in the fourth to force a decisive fifth game. Hirsch served an ace to begin the game, but Dartmouth could not capitalize. Although never down by more than four in the game, the Big Green failed to hold off a strong performance from Yale's Julia Mailander, and Yale captured a thrilling two-point victory.
With the loss, Dartmouth dropped to 13-7 overall. At 6-4 in league play, Dartmouth still remains in contention for the Ivy League title. Only Princeton, who is undeafeated in league play, Penn and Yale are ahead of the Big Green in the standings.
"Although we didn't win, we played together with a lot of heart, and that is all we could really ask for from ourselves," Marston said.
She also acknowledged that Yale is a technically sound team, though she believes Dartmouth is better overall.
Next weekend Dartmouth is scheduled to face the first- and second-ranked teams in the Ivy League, Princeton and Penn, on the road. Marston hopes to improve on a mistake Dartmouth committed in both games this week.
"I think the main area of improvement for us needs to be winning the first game of the match," said Marston. "If we do this, we will set the tone for the entire match and the rest of our season."
