Women's Volleyball: Princeton suffers 1st Ivy League setback

The women’s volleyball team split two matches on the road this weekend, suffering its first Ivy League loss to Columbia 3-0 before beating Cornell 3-1. The Tigers came out of their first conference road trip with a 4-1 record in Ivy League play, good for second place behind Yale.

Junior outside hitter Lydia Rudnick had one of her stronger showings in the loss to Columbia, recording 15 kills, and followed it up with a 17-kill performance against Cornell. The fact that senior middle blocker Cathryn Quinn also had a good game against Cornell, recording 18 kills, was one of the major reasons that the Tigers won that match.

As has been the case throughout this entire season, the youngest Tigers played an important role in both matches. Multiple freshmen are always on the court and have appeared to handle all this playing time despite having less experience.

“It’s been quite a bit of pressure to start as a freshman, but the team has been very encouraging,” said freshman setter Ginny Willis, who recorded 45 assists against Cornell. “The upperclassmen have been amazingly nice and supportive, and I definitely gain a lot of confidence from the older girls.”

The Tigers were coming off three straight five-game victories at home when they traveled to Columbia to take on the Lions. The offense did not click at any point of the match, however, and the Lions took advantage of that to win in a three-game sweep, dealing Princeton its first Ivy League defeat.

“I think, as a team, we weren’t mentally prepared for our match against Columbia. We took the match too lightly and weren’t able to dig ourselves out of the hole we got into,” Willis said. “We need to be ready for every team to play [its] absolute best against us, and we need to be ready to respond with our absolute best.”

Princeton then had to travel to Cornell to take on a team that was in last place in the Ivy League standings. The visitors easily took the first game 25-20, sweeping the final four points of the set, and were completely dominant in taking the second game 25-14.

As has been a problem for the Tigers throughout the season, though, they were not able to finish the team off right away. Cornell overcame the strong Princeton start to take the third set 25-23. The hosts pulled even at 23-23 in the fourth game and threatened to extend the match to five, but two consecutive kills from Rudnick closed out the Princeton victory.

First-year head coach Sabrina King ’01 must have been pleased that her team made adjustments from the previous week, when she said that the Tigers had to work on closing out matches before the fifth set. Both Quinn and Willis had positive comments about the job the new coach is doing.

“She has handled the position really well,” Quinn said. “We have great open communication that allows us to continue improving.”

“I love coach King,” Willis said. “She is a smart coach and great person. We are very lucky to have her, and we couldn’t ask for a better coach to lead us to the Ivy League championship.”

King and the Tigers will face one of their toughest tests on Friday when they host first-place Yale, which has yet to lose a match in Ivy League play this entire season.

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“We need to pass well and keep up our energy and stay positive,” Quinn said. “Yale is a really good team, and everyone will need to play our best in order to beat them.”

Willis agreed with Quinn but appeared confident about the team’s chances to pull out the victory.

“We have to be firing on all cylinders,” Willis said. “We have a team of very talented players, and, if we all play our best game, we’ll come through with a win.”