The Big Green women (9-10, 2-5 Ivy) began their road weekend strong with a win against the Tigers (6-11, 2-5 Ivy) for their first Ivy road win of the year.
"It was a great game," co-captain Elisa Scudder '14 said. "Princeton is a hard road trip because it's far away, and its gym can be a tough environment to play in. Despite all of that, we came out really fired up and ready to play."
Dartmouth came out with an aggressive start, winning the first two sets 25-20. In the third and fourth sets, however, Princeton adjusted its play and took both sets 25-20 and 25-15, respectively.
"We came out really strong, but then they came back a different team in terms of how they were defending our hitters," co-captain Lucia Pohlman '15 said. "We struggled to compete with them in the third and fourth sets once they were playing at such a high level."
Nonetheless, the Big Green sustained its aggression throughout the game, as hitters Paige Caridi '16, Emily Astarita '17, Molly Kornfeind '17 and Scudder all produced double digit kill totals. Kornfeind and Caridi led the team in digs with 14 apiece.
"We were really snappy on defense, and we were all in our zone and playing our game well," Caridi said. "We came out with a lot of urgency and a drive to get the win."
The team balanced offensive and defensive skills throughout the game.
"I think we are doing a really good job at having a distributive offense that's not too heavy on the outside hitter," Pohlman said. "At the same time, our defense is giving us the passes we need."
In the fifth and decisive set, the Big Green raced forward with a 6-2 lead after three consecutive serving aces by Scudder. The team did not let this gap close, as the Tigers did not come within five points for the rest of the match. The set finished with a score of 15-9 in favor of the visitors.
"I think we took Princeton by surprise, and that they had discounted us a little bit at the beginning," Scudder said. "We were able to get a lead pretty quickly on them. They came back really fired up the next two games, but we were able to close the last set."
On Saturday, Dartmouth traveled to Penn (9-9, 3-4 Ivy), but could not secure a second win for the weekend, falling 3-1 to the Quakers.
The Big Green began with its typical offensive drive, taking the first set 26-24. Once the Quakers won the second set, however, they did not let up until the end of the match. Penn won the remaining sets 25-16, 25-16 and 25-18.
"I think we weren't as aggressive as we could have been," Caridi said. "Our attacking wasn't our best, and we got into a lull. We weren't putting the ball away as well as we needed to."
On the offensive side, Astarita led with 14 kills and was followed by Kaira Lujan '16's nine kills. Stacey Benton '17 recorded a match-best 41 assists.
"It was one of those games where everyone was working really hard, but it was not necessarily producing the outcome that we wanted," Pohlman said. "We weren't able to make the adjustments that we needed in order to win the game."
In the future, the players hope to minimize other teams' ability to poke holes in their offense.
"I think we need to work on minimizing runs from other teams and making more of an effort to be smarter with our heads," Scudder said. "Once teams get a lead, it is hard to catch up in such a short game."
This Friday, the team will take on Harvard University in an Ivy home game in the first leg of a five-game home stand. After losing to the Crimson 3-0 on Sept. 27, the Big Green hopes to redeem itself and secure an Ivy League win.
"We're all really excited," Scudder said. "We were disappointed by our last result against them, but now that we have two wins under our belt we're hoping to take a win from them."
