All Together Now: W. Volleyball rides era of good feeling to top of Ivies

The numbers show a turnaround as decisive as a Kaego Ogbechie kill.

In 2001, the Harvard women’s volleyball team crawled to a 3-11 conference record. One year later, the Crimson stands proudly atop the Ivy League standings with a 9-1 mark.

The transformation is clear. According to the team, its explanation is as well.

“It’s more or less the same team out there that is was last year,” says senior captain Mindy Jellin. “The difference is team chemistry.”

Team chemistry seems like a vague cause for such a clear effect. Athletes, not intangibles, are supposed to rocket teams from near-worst to first, but no new talent has joined the Crimson. If anything, Harvard is playing with fewer weapons this season. The Crimson (13-8) graduated one of its best all-time player last spring, Harvard career kills leader Erin Denniston ’02.

So what happened?

“The technical and athletic ability was definitely there,” says Harvard Coach Jennifer Weiss. “There were definitely [technical] things we worked on and improved, but team chemistry was our focus.”

It’s been the Crimson’s mantra. Over and over, everyone associated with the team raves about the team’s dynamic, both on and off the court.

“Everyone on this team gets along,” Weiss says.

On the court, the team’s chemistry is visible in the fluidity of its offense.

Jellin, the team’s setter, spreads the ball to a wide variety of Harvard hitters despite having Ivy kill leader Ogbechie at her disposal.

The Crimson is anything but a one-woman team.

“Volleyball is the ultimate team sport,” Jellin says. “You have to depend on the people next to you. The trust we have in each other is what helps our team chemistry.”

It may be a rarity for Ogbechie not to dominate the kill column, but in virtually every match, she is joined in double-digits by two of her teammates.

Junior outside hitters Allison Bendush and Amy Dildine, junior middle hitter Mariah Pospisil and sophomore outside hitter Nilly Schweitzer all provide potent offensive options.

It is Jellin, though, who is responsible for getting them the ball. And the captain is the team’s unquestionable leader on and off the court.

“She understands the mission of this team,” Weiss says. “She is a great leader.”

According to her coach, Jellin may be responsible for the team’s turnaround more than anyone else.

A co-captain with Denniston last season, Jellin took over as the lone official general of this year’s squad last spring.

During the less intense period of thrice-weekly practices and weight lifting, the Crimson began to come together.

“In the spring we saw [how good we could be], and we all had really high hopes coming into this season,” Jellin says.

Once the season began, it didn’t take long for the Crimson’s hopes to be confirmed.

Harvard raced to a 6-0 record to open its Ivy season before falling to defending league co-champion Penn 3-1 on Oct. 25. The Quakers (17-4, 8-1) remain in a virtual deadlock with the Crimson, and travel to Cambridge for a 4 p.m. Saturday match that should decide the Ivy championship.

“I’m not surprised at all [at Harvard’s success],” says Penn Coach Kerry Carr. “Harvard was this good last year. They just had a few momentum busters.”

Carr said Harvard’s talent was never an issue, especially with the arrival of its Class of 2005. Featuring Ogbechie and Schweitzer, some considered it the best freshmen class in Ivy League history.

Josh Stephenson, a writer for the Princeton Alumni Weekly, wrote last fall that, “Harvard freshmen Kaego Ogbechie and Pernilla Schweitzer may represent a breakthrough for the league.”

Carr emphatically agrees, and even credits Ogbechie for making top high school athletes more realistic Ivy recruiting targets.

The year after Ogbechie and Schweitzer—both California girls—spurned more renowned, West-Coast volleyball schools for the Ivy-covered concaves of Harvard, Penn pulled in a top-50 recruit of its own in 6’2 Michelle Kauffman of San Diego.

“I think that Kaego coming into the league really helped with [signing Kauffman],” Carr says. “I think that recruits across the country are seeing that they can get a good education, not just a scholarship to a big name school, and play good Division I volleyball in the Ivy League.”

It’s a great irony that Ogbechie’s arrival at Harvard may have indirectly made the Crimson’s road to the title a little tougher.

Avictory over Kauffman and the Quakers on Saturday is the main obstacle between the Crimson and its first Ivy title since 1997.

Weiss is confident her team will overcome that obstacle.

“We know what we need to do. They haven’t seen totally what we are capable of when you consider our last match,” Weiss says.

Harvard hopes that Penn will see what the rest of the Ivy League has all season—a team that wins. Together.

—Staff writer Lande A. Spottswood can be reached at spottsw@fas.harvard.edu.