Harvard Guts Out Close Road Win at Brown, Falls to Yale

This year, the end of daylight savings brought with it the end of the Harvard women’s volleyball team’s regular season road schedule. The Crimson (8-16, 5-7 Ivy) split the weekend, conquering Brown (8-6, 2-10), 3-2, but falling to Yale (16-7, 10-2) in three sets.

“Against Brown, we came out really strong, and we played together as a team,” said freshman middle blocker Teresa Skelly. “Against Yale, it was a really hard and intense game—we weren’t quite on.”

YALE 3, HARVARD 0

At home in the Lee Amphitheater, conference leader Yale proved too much for the visiting Crimson, as it nabbed each frame by a margin of at least seven points on Saturday night.

Harvard couldn’t recover from the dominant play of freshman Erica Reetz, who notched 13 kills and 11 digs, and junior Bridget Hearst, who followed close behind with 11 kills. Freshman setter Kendall Polan also dished out 23 assists in the match.

“Yale’s a talented team,” junior libero Christine Wu said. “We lost focus, and they outworked us. We couldn’t get a flow going throughout the night.”

The Bulldogs asserted their dominance early in the match, taking the first six points to jump out to an early lead. They likewise capitalized on an eight-point run in the second set to ultimately capture the first two frames with identical scores of 25-14.

“That’s been one of our problems that we’ve been battling with,” said Wu of the uninterrupted runs of points. “It’s a matter of focusing on every single point...to stop the other team from putting together these runs.”

The third stanza showed promise early for the Crimson—after juggling a couple of early leads, Harvard tied it up at 10. The squad also put up its best numbers, hitting at .087 for the frame. But the Bulldogs couldn’t be topped, hitting at over quadruple Harvard’s effort at a .368 clip. The crew captured eight of the next nine points to put the Crimson squad out of contention for the third set. Yale wrapped up the final game, 25-18.

A few bright moments in the tough loss were the performances of junior co-captain Anne Carroll Ingersoll and sophomore Taylor Docter.

Ingersoll, who rotates between middle blocker and outside hitter, led the team with eight kills, and Docter, an outside hitter, chipped in seven of her own. Sophomore setter Beth Kinsella also added 21 assists.

HARVARD 3, BROWN 2

Friday night at the Pizzitola Center saw a much better turnout for the Harvard women. The team turned out a thrilling 15-13 fifth-set victory to topple the Bears and conclude the nearly two-hour match.

“I think it was great that our team was able to pull it through,” Wu said. “We came out really well.”

The Crimson got off to a strong start, as, with fair ease, it captured the first two sets of the match. With the score at 24-20, Docter put down one of her 22 kills on the night to give Harvard the first stanza. At 21-16 in the second set, she again came through and added three clutch kills to help lift her team to a 25-16 victory.

“Taylor lit it up on Friday,” Wu said. “She really shined when we needed her. She stepped up and stepped into a leadership position.”

But Brown answered with a strong rally in the third set. After tying it up at nine apiece, freshman Emma Pastore and sophomore Katrina Post carried the Bears to a 25-19 win.

The crew carried its momentum into the fourth frame as well. The Crimson closed the gap and came within a point of its opponent at 21-20, but Brown, hitting at .216 to Harvard’s .171, evened the match at two-all with a 25-21 victory.

Playing for the win, both teams seemed relentless as the fifth set progressed. Neither team won more than two points at a time, as the score knotted itself at three, four, six, seven, eight, 10, 11, and 13 points apiece.

After a Crimson timeout, it was Docter who sealed the Bears’ fate.

Hitting .432 on the evening, Docter put away two consecutive kills at net to push Harvard to victory.

“Taylor had a spectacular showing,” Skelly said. “[She] was able to fire up our team and keep us motivated.”

On top of Docter’s standout performance, other Crimson athletes had solid nights as well.

Sophomore Jennifer Martin registered 10 kills hitting outside, and junior middle hitter Sandra Lynne Fryhofer chipped in nine. Kinsella added 41 assists and Wu also chipped in 29 digs—good for best on the team.

—Staff writer Molly E. Kelly can be reached at mkelly@college.harvard.edu.