Crimson Swept on Roadtrip

It was a tale of two cities: a blowout in Ithaca, and a heartbreaker in New York City.

In its final road trip of the year, the Harvard women’s volleyball team fell twice to New York schools, getting swept 3-0 by Ivy League leader Cornell on Friday night before stumbling late against Columbia in a 3-2 defeat on Saturday afternoon.

Despite the losing efforts, sophomore outside hitter Laura Mahon had the best weekend of her collegiate volleyball career, racking up 37 kills and 32 digs.

“Laura Mahon did a great job,” co-captain Elizabeth Blotky said. “Especially against Cornell’s big block, diversifying and working on different types of shots was really important, and she really stepped up.”

With only two contests remaining in the season, the Crimson (3-19, 0-12 Ivy) will have to pick up a victory against Yale or Brown at home this weekend to snap its 11-match losing streak and avoid finishing the year without a league win.

Earlier in the season, Harvard was blanked by the Bulldogs in New Haven, Conn., but took the Bears to four games in Providence before losing 3-1.

“When we last played Brown, it was definitely a very close match and it was very well fought,” said junior middle hitter Katie Turley-Molony. “Every team that has played us has come in not respecting us but has come out of the match respecting us a lot more.”

“This is our last weekend to prove something to ourselves and our team,” Blotky added. “We’re not going to be the team that gives up hope.”

COLUMBIA 3, HARVARD 2

In spite of being weary from the long trip from Ithaca, the Crimson started out strong but faltered late in the match against the Lions, succumbing 3-2 (32-30, 14-30, 29-31, 28-30, 15-6).

Several Harvard players posted outstanding individual statistics—including freshman Kathryn McKinley’s career-high 19 kills and Blotky’s team-high 24 digs—but the Crimson could not effectively combine those performances to produce a victory.

“One of our teams great weaknesses this year is putting all our individual efforts towards a larger effort,” Turley-Molony said. “We have a lot of extremely talented players, but when it comes to clutch time, we can’t always count on everyone to perform as well as they can.”

Harvard looked strong early in the fifth frame, taking a 6-5 lead on an attack by McKinley.

But Columbia (6-16, 4-7) ran off a string of kills and aces to take the next 10 points and close out the match.

“Our ball control was on for most of the game, but in the fifth game it sort of broke down for us,” Blotky said. “If our offense isn’t on to begin with, then it makes things really difficult.”

The Crimson encountered no such problems in the second game. Hitting an astounding .531, Harvard posted 19 kills and only two attack errors to steamroll past the Lions and tie the match at one frame apiece.

Carrying this momentum into game three, the Crimson held off a late Columbia rally to escape with a 31-29 victory and take the 2-1 match lead.

But the Lions revived their offense in the fourth frame, matching Harvard kill for kill before breaking away to a 29-21 lead.

Though the Crimson rallied to take the next seven points, including two aces and a kill by McKinley, a Columbia block ended Harvard’s comeback attempt, 30-28, and forced the deciding fifth game.

“It’s frustrating because we completely dominated [Columbia] in the beginning,” Blotky said. “To see that we’re capable of doing that, and then not being able to pull out the match, that’s just frustrating.”

CORNELL 3, HARVARD 0

It was David and Goliath again, but this time, Goliath made sure that the underdog had no chance.

Though the Crimson took a game from the undefeated Big Red the last time the two teams met, Cornell thoroughly suffocated the Harvard offense in its home gym, toppling the Crimson 3-0 (30-19, 30-19, 30-13).

“It’s definitely difficult to play on the road,” Turley-Molony said. “While a lot of players feed off the heckling that we get, not all of our players are able to deal with it.”

Hitting .370 for the match, the Big Red (18-3, 11-0) hammered at and around Harvard’s defense.

On the other side of the net, the Crimson hitters found it near impossible to penetrate the Cornell block and were forced to diversify their shots in an attempt to pick up points.

“Offensively, we had to be smarter,” Blotky said. “Laura Mahon did a good job, but with such a big block, it was problematic.”

The Big Red’s powerful attack was most prominent in the third frame. Cornell hit at a .421 clip, jumping out to a large early lead and coasting to a 30-13 win.

Harvard did not fare much better in games one or two, either. Despite keeping the score tighter, the Crimson could not find a way to shut down the Big Red offense and succumbed 30-19 in both frames.

“Going into it, definitely, we thought that we had nothing to lose,” Blotky said. “It would have been great to be that random team that comes in and knocks off the number-one team in the league. But we just couldn’t pull it out.”

—Staff writer Karan Lodha can be reached at klodha@fas.harvard.edu.