Women's Volleyball Sweeps Brown and Yale

This weekend, the Harvard women’s volleyball team played its sixth and final conference weekend doubleheader.

This weekend also happened to be its first sweep of the competition.

Taking on both Yale on Friday and Brown on Saturday in the Malkin Athletic Center, the Crimson (8-14, 7-7 Ivy League) emerged victorious. In two five set matches and scores of 3-2, Harvard ended the season with a fourth place finish among Ancient Eight.

HARVARD 3, BROWN 2

Brown (5-19, 3-11) came into the matchup seventh in the Ancient Eight rankings, ahead of only Dartmouth. Despite the Bears’ strong performance at the net—racking up 13 blocks to Harvard’s eight—the team would falter as the Crimson cruised through the final set.

Harvard started off the night with a key 25-21 victory, capitalizing on the Bears’ nine errors throughout the set. It was McCarthy who finished the set with a service ace. While the second set fell to the Brown, the Crimson kept close, pulling to within two before a 6-1 run granted the Bears the 25-18 victory.

While the third set was tied at 17 apiece at one point, the final portion of the game was marred by Brown errors: one to give Harvard the lead—a gap the Bears never closed—and a service error to close the game in favor of the Crimson.

The fourth set went Brown’s way after a 20-20 tie was followed by four straight Bear points and a 25-23 Brown win.

“Brown is a slower system [than Yale] so it took us a while to get adjusted,” Harvard coach Jennifer Weiss said. “I was really proud of the way we could do that both matches.“

In the final set of the match, Harvard maintained a lead throughout through an offensive dominance that tallied a team total of ten kills and only one error. The final point was brought home with a kill by co-captain setter Corie Bain in the final game of her career.

Bain recorded her 32nd career triple double and eighth of the season with 14 kills, 23 assists and 14 digs. Bain ended her career as the Harvard record holder for triple doubles, double doubles, and single season aces. She ranks second for career aces and sixth for career assists. Overall, the setter has earned 14 Ivy League awards.

“Corie is one of the best players that we’ve had,” Weiss said. “She just plays hard and makes us play hard with her, those around her get better. She’ll be greatly missed. She’s definitely left her legacy and has been a wonderful one.”

For the rest of the team, Kebe matched her season high of 15 kills, Burbank recorded 18 kills of her own, supplemented by five digs. Freshman setter Erin McCarthy had 33 assists and 12 digs while Uhr had 19 digs of her own in addition to seven assists.

“I think that our success in this last weekend of Ivy play really represents our ability to get knocked down and come back stronger,” sophomore setter Brooke Istvan said. “We are a young team and have made leaps and bounds from the beginning of the season which looks promising for next year.”

HARVARD 3, YALE 2

Coming into the matchup with two consecutive 3-0 sweeps against Princeton and Penn, the Bulldogs (18-5, 11-3 Ivy) were on a tear for the Ivy League title. This momentum, and aspirations for the title, was put to rest by the Crimson.

“I think all of us agree that our game Friday against Yale was the most fun all season,” Istvan said. “Our team has been forced to face challenge after even more difficult challenge this season. But every time we got knocked down we got back up working and fighting even harder.”

The first set was taken by Harvard in an easy 25-13 victory. The two started off evenly matched and tied at 7-7. A key kill by junior outside hitter Paige Kebe catalyzed a run for the Crimson in which they scored eight of the next nine points. Yale failed to make up the difference. Harvard led the Bulldogs with 14 kills in the set and only two errors while the Yale dealt with seven.

Harvard faltered the next set at 15-15, allowing a 5-0 Yale run. The Crimson brought the score to within reason after three point run left Yale with a one-point lead at 23-22. Two attack errors later, Yale took the set 22-25.

The third set also fell to the Bulldogs 23-25 as Harvard allowed an early 10-2 lead. Again the Crimson would work to pull the score to within one, this time at 23-24, but would ultimately drop the set.

In a set featuring 18 kills and four errors on the part of the Harvard, as opposed to Yale’s 14 and six, respectively, the Crimson tallied a 26-24 win.

The team capped a come-from-behind victory with a comeback in the final set. Trailing 10-7, Harvard went on a 6-1 run, effectively building a two-point lead. This would prove too much for the Bulldogs to overcome as Harvard took the set and match with the 15-13 win.

On the night, freshman outside hitter Grace Roberts Burbank led the team and recorded her career high 26 kills, accompanied by seven digs. In blocks, freshman middle blocker Maclaine Fields and sophomore middle blocker Christina Cornelius tallied six blocks a piece while sophomore outside hitter Anna Uhr posted 22 digs.

“I think we prepared well during the week, coming into this weekend,” Weiss said. “We knew what had to do against each team it was just a matter of keeping to the game plan and executing what we wanted to do defensively.”