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Princeton University Athletics
Player Of The Week Alex Brown Hopes To Lead 'U' To Volleyball Crown
November 16, 2004 | Women's Volleyball
Nov. 16, 2004
PRINCETON - With her team in desperate need of a spark, senior middle blocker Alex Brown delivered the performance of the season. Her efforts earned her the Ivy League women's volleyball Player of the Week honor, and it has put the Tigers in position to claim their 13th Ivy League title.
Brown led Princeton to wins at Harvard and Dartmouth over the weekend by killing a team-best 40 balls and hitting .349 over the two matches. She added 12 blocks, eight digs and three aces. Her best match came against Dartmouth on a night the Big Green celebrated Senior Night. The hosts did everything they could to spoil Princeton's season, but Brown's 27 kills (with only two errors) carried the team to a 3-2 win.
That win, combined with a wild two weekends of Ivy League competition, has set Princeton up for the Wednesday night showdown with Penn. The Quakers, who have won the last three Ivy League titles, are one of four teams that can't represent the league at the 2004 NCAA tournament. While Brown, Columbia and Dartmouth have joined the Quakers in the category of eliminated teams, both Princeton and Yale will attempt to join Cornell and Harvard as Ivy League champions tomorrow night. Confused?
Cornell and Harvard finished their league seasons over the weekend, and both clinched a share of the Ivy League titles with 10-4 records. Of course, both could have taken care of this whole tiebreaker process by sweeping at home over the weekend, but Yale topped Cornell 3-0 and Princeton topped Harvard 3-1.
Those matches helped both Princeton and Yale earn 9-4 league marks entering Wednesday night. Yale will host Brown, a team that has already taken one match from the Bulldogs this season, while Princeton will host Penn. If both Yale and Princeton win, there will be a four-team playoff next weekend to determine which of the four Ivy League champions will earn the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament (more on that later). If one team wins, it will be a three-team playoff, and if both Princeton and Yale lose, it will be a showdown between Cornell and Harvard.
Princeton needs to take care of business before it can worry about the weekend. The Tigers defeated Penn 3-1 in the season opener, but the Quakers have proven to be a challenging young squad this season and helped everybody out with a 3-0 win over Cornell two weeks ago. The Tigers will need positive hitting from outsides Lauren Loban and Lauren Grumet, as well as a solid match from junior setter Jenny Senske.
It will be a pressure-packed environment, but this team faced two must-win matches last weekend and came away with wins. Six of the seven starters were on the Palestra court last season when Princeton challenged for a share of the league title before falling in a tight 3-1 loss to the senior-laden Quakers.
If Princeton wins, it will travel to upstate New York and play at the Viniar Athletic Center on the campus of Union College for the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. If Yale wins, Princeton will be the third seed and play No. 2 Cornell at 7 p.m., following the Yale-Harvard match. The two winners would meet Sunday for the bid. If Yale loses, Princeton would be the second seed and would meet Harvard on Saturday at 4 p.m., with the winner facing Cornell Sunday at 4 p.m.
Regardless, a win Wednesday night would give the program its 13th Ivy League championship and its 11th under head coach Glenn Nelson, who earlier this season became the third coach in the history of Princeton athletics to win 500 games with one team.