Women's Volleyball: Comebacks keep Tigers in first place

Princeton (8-6 overall, 3-0 Ivy League) took sole possession of first place in the Ancient Eight thanks to two wins at Dillon Gymnasium over the weekend. On Friday night, the Tigers topped Brown (6-10, 0-4) 3-2 and followed that win with a 3-1 victory over Yale (8-7, 2-2) on Saturday afternoon.

After opening the season with three consecutive wins, the Tigers fell into a rut, losing more than they won for the first two weeks of the season as they traveled up and down the East Coast.

But Princeton’s home opener against Temple on Sept. 22 proved to be the perfect tonic for the team’s woes, and it gave the Tigers the confidence they needed to jump-start their Ivy League season. That victory preceded Princeton’s comeback upset over Penn last week that saw the team come within two points of losing the game before pulling out a 25-23 third set and claiming the final two games of the match.

Coming into this weekend, Princeton’s biggest concern was sustaining the same level of play it showed in the final three games against Penn.

The Bears started out strong on Friday night, taking the first set 25-21, but the Tigers roared back for a 25-22 win in the second. In the third set, though, the wheels looked to be coming off as the Tigers succumbed to a late run that gave the Bears the set, 25-20.

One set away from a blemish on their Ivy League record, the Tigers found a way to claw back into the match. The Bears never stood a chance in the fourth as the Tigers pulled away for a 25-17 victory behind junior libero Hillary Ford’s strong serving. Princeton put on a clinic in the fifth to win 15-4, with junior middle blocker Cathryn Quinn winning three of Princeton’s final four points to set the stage for Saturday’s showdown against Yale.

The Tigers had not beaten Yale since the 2007 season, and after losing 12 straight sets to the Bulldogs, Princeton was primed to end that streak. The first set was close from the start, and the Tigers were serving up 23-20 when Yale reeled off five straight points to capture the set.

The Tigers never flinched, though, and they continued exchanging quick points with Yale in the second set. As the match progressed, the rallies started getting longer, and by 20-15 in the set, almost every point was hotly contested. An impressive last-minute dive at 23-19 gave the Tigers a five-point cushion and set point, and the team wasted little time in putting the set away.

The Bulldogs proved to be just as persistent as the Tigers have been throughout this season. Yale continued testing Princeton until 17-17 in the third, when the Tigers captured the longest rally of the match to take the lead. There was a palpable feeling of the inevitable after that as the Tigers slowly pulled away, and in the fourth set the Tigers took an early lead and never looked back. Yale never came within two points again.

Despite their record in the Ivy League, the Tigers have yet to play a match in which they take the lead at the outset. Though Princeton has shown dominant form in stretches, the team always seems to be playing from behind. On the other hand, playing from behind seems to suit their style.

“They’re allowing themselves to have some sense of urgency in the matches so that they’re not allowing that first game that they’re not taking — that first set of the match — to be the determining factor of what the ultimate outcome is going to be,” head coach Jolie Ward said.

Princeton’s confidence is peaking at just the right time, as it will host Harvard and Dartmouth next weekend. This weekend cemented the Tigers’ spot at the top of the league and showed that they have what it takes to win their first Ivy League title since 2007.

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“Their character and their heart are definitely much larger than I gave them credit for in the beginning of the season,” Ward said. “I knew that we had talent, but talent can only take you so far, and I think that one of the things that we have demonstrated in the last week or so is that there is more to us than just this skill set of passing and setting and hitting.”