Women Spikers Take 7th; Tigers Claim Ivy Crown

The Harvard women's volleyball team closed out its season this weekend at Brown's Marvel Gym, tying Dartmouth for seventh--and last--place in the women's Ivy League Volley ball Championship.

Although the double-elimination tournament didn't end until yesterday (when Princeton came from a two game deficit to snatch the title from Penn), the Crimson was forced to make an early exit.

Harvard dropped its opening match to second-seeded Penn in three straight games on Friday night. The spikers played a sluggish match, accumulating only 12 points in the three games.

"[Penn] has a lot more talent than us," Crimson Captain Lisa Eskow said. "They're a lot bigger than we are. It wasn't a big surprise that we lost."

Once-defeated Yale was the Crimson's next opponent. Having lost once each, the teams were battling to say in the tournament.

The Bulldogs waged a better battle than Harvard, though, spiking the Crimson in consecutive games, 18-16, 15-9 and 15-7.

"We came really close to beating them," Eskow said, "especially in the first game."

But close doesn't count in women's volleyball and the spikers received an early ticket home from Providence.

It was an appropriate end to a frustrating season for Harvard,