Dartmouth Volleyball Wins Five-Set Thriller Over Cornell

Friday, October 8

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

CORNELL

Dartmouth Volleyball Wins Five-Set Thriller Over Cornell

10/8/2010 9:28:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

By: Dartmouth

HANOVER, N.H. - It looked like all was lost for the Big Green women's volleyball team on Friday night. Cornell came into Leede Arena and won the first two sets of the match to put Dartmouth in a deep hole. Down 0-2, Head Coach Ann Marie Larese inserted setter Alissa Santa Maria (Yorba Linda, Calif.) into the contest and it proved to be the difference maker. The sophomore distributed the ball around to a rejuvenated offense as the Big Green won 3-2 in a come-from-behind victory. The win improved Dartmouth to 12-2 overall and 3-0 in conference play. Dartmouth has won four in a row, and is a tidy 3-0 on its home court.

It wasn't easy for Dartmouth as it trailed in every set including the decisive fifth set. In the fifth, Cornell won the first two points, but Dartmouth regained the lead after winning three consecutive points, highlighted by an Elisa Scudder (Ashburn, Va.) ace. The two teams would go back and forth, until the Big Green held a 12-9 advantage. Cornell responded with a kill by Deveney Pula and got within one after an attack error by the Big Green.

With the score at 12-11, junior Madeline Baird (Austin Texas) hit a timely kill to put Dartmouth back up two. Again, the Big Red would not go away as they had a kill of their own to bring the set within one. From there, Annie Villanueva (Santa Barbara, Calif.) had seen enough. The junior recorded a kill to give Dartmouth match point. Cornell called a time out to try and stop the momentum, but after the break Villanueva recorded another kill to end the match.

The first two sets were dominated by Cornell. The Big Green came out flat in the first and the Big Red rolled to a 25-13 win. In the second, Dartmouth was more competitive, but never held a lead as the Big Red won, 25-20. Dartmouth gained its first lead of the match in the third and cruised to win, 25-17. In the fourth set, the largest lead of either team was four, and the score was tied 23-23 with the Big Green looking to push the match to a fifth set. Dartmouth got what it needed as Scudder scored with a kill and freshman Meghan Cooney (Martinez, Calif.) followed it up with a kill of her own to win the set, 25-23.

The offense was completely spread around as Santa Maria recorded 27 assists, in just three of the five sets, seven digs and one kill. The Big Green had four players with at least eight kills; Baird recorded 16 to go along with 27 digs, Villanueva tallied 11, Cooney racked up nine and senior Kelsey Johnson (Carlsbad, Calif.) had eight.

Cornell's Kelly Hansen led all players with 19 kills on an impressive .341 hitting percentage. The Big Red defense was led by Risa Ka'awa who had a match-high 31 digs. The loss dropped Cornell to 3-9 overall and 1-2 in the Ivy League.

Dartmouth lookes to use the momentum of the come-from-behind win against Columbia (9-4, 1-2) when the Big Green host the Lions on Saturday at 4:00 pm.