The women’s volleyball team fought hard in its Saturday Ivy League opener, but ultimately the obstacles of returning only three starters and adjusting to the style of a new head coach stood between them and a win.
Princeton (2-10 overall, 0-1 Ivy League) had home-field advantage for its faceoff with Penn (10-4, 1-0) but stood little chance against a Quaker squad that entered the weekend with the second- highest number of wins in the league. Penn’s blistering attack earned it a three-set sweep of Princeton, 25-16, 25-21 and 25-15.
While the Tigers are still rebuilding their team, they had several reasons to feel optimistic heading into the weekend. Not only was Princeton unbeaten at home so far this season, but the Quakers hadn’t beaten the Tigers at Dillon Gymnasium in over four years. In fact, Princeton had won nine of the previous 10 matches against Penn.
But the loss of several star players has ended the era of dominance for the Tigers.
“I don’t think we were expecting [the Quakers] to perform as well as they did,” senior outside hitter and co-captain Sheena Donohue said. “But they played really well. They had some new girls on the team that were really key in the win. They definitely stepped it up against us, and they were able to terminate points.”
Eager to snap its losing record against Princeton, Penn came out of the gates strong and took the first points of the set to gain a 13-3 lead. The Tigers desperately fought back against the seemingly unstoppable Quaker attack, serving up six unanswered points. With the momentum in Princeton’s favor, Penn’s coach wisely called a timeout, breaking the Tigers’ rhythm. This strategy worked: Moments after the timeout ended, the Quakers smashed in a kill and served an ace to end Princeton’s run and put Penn up, 16-9.
The Tigers put a few more points on the board, but ultimately the Penn offense — which hit an outstanding .480 in the first set — walked away with the win without ever giving up the lead.
“There are some holes in our defense that we need to work on,” Donohue said. “I think that we just started fighting back a little too late in the first match. We kind of got complacent, but once we realized we were down we started fighting back and started to close it. But it was too late.”
After a discouraging first round of play, Princeton came out hard early in the second set, gaining a 10-7 lead. The Quakers and the Tigers traded points in the following minutes, but with the score tied at 16, Penn gained the lead after a spike was smashed in by a Quaker outside hitter. Once Penn reached a 19-16 lead, head coach Jolie Ward called a timeout to regroup her players.
The Tigers went on a 3-0 run following the timeout to knot the game at 19, but that was as close as Princeton got to winning a set all night. The Quakers responded to the Tigers’ short streak of points by scoring six of the final eight points to for the win.
“We had the momentum for the majority of the game, and in the end we couldn’t finish it,” Donohue said. “I think we just need to keep focus throughout the entire game.”
Down two sets, Princeton needed to play flawlessly to dig itself out of its hole. Instead of achieving perfection, however, the Tigers fell flat during the final set. Initially both teams traded points, but after a few minutes, Penn took off, going on a 9-4 run to gain an 18-10 lead. One of the final points — an attack error by the Tigers — was indicative of how Princeton had been playing throughout the set.
“After losing the second game, our momentum was kind of shot, because we were pretty close, and we thought we were going to beat them,” Donohue said. “By the third game everyone was a little tired, but I don’t know if that was necessarily [why we lost]. You have to have the will to win no matter what game it is, and I’m just not sure if it was completely there.”
Despite the dismal end to the night, Donohue — always a reliable attacker — tallied 12 kills and hit .303 during the game. Freshman outside hitter Lydia Rudnick followed close behind with 10 kills while also recording four digs and three blocks.
Though the Quakers are one of the league’s top teams at the moment, a loss to Penn does not bode well for Princeton’s chances against Yale in its upcoming match, the reigning Ivy League champions, who is more talented and more dangerous than anything the Tigers faced on Saturday.
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