Women's volleyball splits pair on first Ivy road trip

For the women's volleyball team, the start of the Ivy League season proceeded as a near-perfect continuation of the preseason trends. Ups quickly succeeded downs, and downs closely followed ups.

After a grueling five-game victory over Harvard (7-9 overall, 0-2 Ivy League) Saturday, Princeton (10-6, 1-1) succumbed to Dartmouth (7-9, 2-0) Sunday, again in five games.

Coming into this weekend's Ivy play, Princeton had strong performances at the Brown Volleyball Invitational and the ASICS Collegiate Volleyball tournament. Between those two successes, however, the Tigers lost two of three matches at the Rutgers Invitational. And after the ASICS tourney, Princeton fell hard to Manhattan last Thursday.

This weekend, however, Princeton started on a high note by battling to a win over Harvard — 16-14, 11-15, 16-14, 4-15, 15-12. With their backs against the wall in the fourth game, the Crimson stomped the Tigers to maintain hope. Princeton rediscovered its roll in the crucial fifth game, however, pulling out the win.

As she did throughout the entire weekend, senior outside hitter Sabrina King led the Tigers in the win over Harvard. She was at the top of the stat sheets with 18 kills and 23 digs.

King turned in another strong performance against the Big Green Sunday, putting away 20 kills and racking up 25 digs. Her work was not enough in that contest, however, as Dartmouth recovered from its recent losing streak and prevailed — 12-15, 15-6, 15-9, 5-15, 15-5. The loss evened the Tigers' Ivy record at 1-1.

Deja vu

The Dartmouth match was strikingly similar to the contest a day earlier, only with Princeton on the losing end. The Tigers rallied with a 15-5 fourth-game win but could not continue their run through the fifth game, losing 5-15 and dropping the match 2-3.

Junior setter Ana Yoerg provided King's primary support in both matches, notching 54 assists against Harvard and 39 against Dartmouth.

After two games, parity is already evident throughout the Ivy League. In fact, Dartmouth is the conference's only undefeated team at 2-0, while only the Crimson has yet to win a game. Three other teams — Yale, Penn and Brown — share Princeton's 1-1 mark.

The Tigers get a brief respite from their Ivy schedule Thursday against Fordham, before again diving into league play this weekend. Saturday's game against Yale touches off five straight Ivy League games for Princeton. For now, the Tigers have balanced their ups and downs for a 1-1 record, but that crucial stretch should determine which end of the scale has the upper hand.