Tigers close out season perfectly

It's official.

The Ivy League has finally succumbed to the overwhelming force that is the 2007 Princeton women's volleyball team.

With a 3-1 road win against Penn on Wednesday night to close out their regular season, the Tigers completed a perfect 14-0 showing within the Ivy League. Having played each Ancient Eight foe twice over a span of six weeks — once in Dillon Gym and once away from home — Princeton managed to keep its focus and avoid any potential slip-ups en route to an achievement never before seen in Ivy League history.

"I'm still shocked, and I don't think I really have a perspective on what we've accomplished," junior outside hitter Parker Henritze said. "It probably won't sink in until after the season is over, but for now it's really been a whirlwind."

None of this could possibly have been expected when the Tigers opened their league schedule against Penn back on Sept. 29. At that point, Princeton was 7-3 with some discouraging out-of conference losses, plagued by streaky play against top opponents.

After such a turnaround, what were the Tigers thinking going into the final stretch of their run at perfection?

"As a team, it is awesome," sophomore outside hitter Sheena Donohue said, "because we have come so far working together, and each girl on the team brings something amazing to the court."

"It feels really good to be undefeated," junior middle blocker Lindsey Ensign said. "It has allowed us to play our last two games with virtually no pressure. It also shows our dominance as a team in the Ivy League, [and] I hope the chairmen of the NCAA Tournament will see [that] and place us as a higher seed."

The Tigers' confidence has only grown over their current 20-match win streak, during which time their opponents have won only 16 games to the Tigers' 60. Over the past 10 matches, foes have won just seven games to Princeton's 30.

Princeton's recent win over Penn was no less a showcase of the Tigers' dominance than any of their other Ivy triumphs. Princeton won the first game 30-27, then cruised to a 30-19 win in the second. After Penn stole the third game 30-25, the Tigers regained control of the match and finished the Quakers off with a decisive 30-26 win in game four.

With Princeton's regular season wrapped up, Tiger fans can now sit back and marvel at their team's impressive statistics from the 2007 campaign. The Tigers' .264 kill percentage was eight points higher than their opponents', and Princeton managed to record 13 more service aces than the competition. But more remarkable are the team's defensive statistics: The Tigers notched 270 more digs than their opponents this season, an advantage of over 13 digs per match.

The numerical dominance doesn't stop there. Individually, Donahue, Ensign and Henritze have combined for 1,216 kills during the season — nearly twice the kill total for the entire roster of defending Ivy League champion Cornell.

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The Tigers will now have to wait over a week to see how much their dominant statistics and flawless conference record sway the NCAA Tournament committee. Princeton clinched the Ivy League's automatic berth weeks ago, but NCAA seedings will not be announced until Nov. 25, via an 8 p.m. television broadcast on ESPNU.

Depending on where in the bracket the Tigers fall, their first postseason game could come any day between Nov. 29 and Dec. 1.

"Since we haven't lost a match for two months, I believe we will be fairly confident going into tournament play, allowing us to hopefully exceed expectations and perform to our best ability," Ensign said.

No one can really predict whether the confidence Princeton has now will still be around in two weeks, when the Tigers open their assault on the nation's best. But after putting together a dominant regular season that no one involved with Ivy League volleyball will ever forget, Princeton is ready to put together a few more perfect memories.