Dartmouth Women's Volleyball Drops Heartbreaker to Harvard

Friday, September 29

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Harvard

Dartmouth Women's Volleyball Drops Heartbreaker to Harvard

9/29/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball

By: Dartmouth

Boxscore

HANOVER, N.H. – Despite winning the first two games the Dartmouth women's volleyball team dropped the final three to lose a hard-fought five-game match to Ivy rival, Harvard Friday in Leede Arena on the first day of the Dartmouth Invitational. The Crimson also defeated the Big Green last week to sweep the series. Dartmouth's Katie Hirsch (Austin, Texas) led all hitters with a .462 average while the Big Green hit .419 in the first game and .201 for the match.

With the loss Dartmouth's record drops to 4-6 on the season, 0-2 Ivy while Harvard improves to 6-5, 2-0 Ivy.

In Game One Jess Thomas (Tampa, Fla.) helped the Big Green to an early four-point lead with Dartmouth increasing that lead to 19-12 and then 26-16. Harvard came back to be down by just nine but a massive kill by senior Nadine Parris (Plymouth, Minn.) gave Dartmouth the 30-21 victory.

The Big Green went up early, 6-2, in the second game. The Crimson tied it a few points later and took a four-point lead. Sandy Barbut (Newport Beach, Calif.) served three straight giving Dartmouth a slight advantage at 11-12. The Big Green continued to increase the lead never looking back as the Crimson could get no closer then 20-24 and 22-26 with the Big Green winning, 30-22.

Harvard took over in Game Three going ahead by 10 pretty quickly. Behind Amanda Marston's (Austin, Texas) serving the Big Green tied it up and pulled ahead by one. The two teams then battled point-for-point over the next five with Dartmouth finally getting the advantage and the lead at 22-20. The Crimson tied the game at 23-all and then went up 26-24. Barbut again helped Dartmouth out of a jam, serving up two points but it was Harvard that won the next four to take a 30-27 win.

Game Four had the Crimson taking a very large lead early with Dartmouth getting only as close as 11-18 as Harvard won easily, 30-16.

The fifth and final game of the match was exciting from the first serve as Frances Samolowicz (St. Charles, Ill.) helped Dartmouth to an early two-point lead. The Big Green went ahead 8-5 before the teams switched sides with Harvard then winning the next two points to pull to 7-8. The two then traded the lead for the next four points before Harvard finally grabbed the lead for good at 14-12 and held on for the 15-13 win.

Thomas led all players with 19 kills along with a team-high 32 digs. Hirsch finished with a game-high 62 assists and 11 digs. Parris, Barbut, Samolowicz and Megan MacGregor (Carlsbad, Calif.) all had double-digit kills while Marston chipped in 30 digs.

The Big Green continues in the Dartmouth Invitational tomorrow taking on New Jersey Institute of Technology at 1:00 pm and then Robert Morris at 5:00 pm.