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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Volleyball Makes Final Road Trip, Looks To Keep Pace In Ivy League Race
November 07, 2008 | Women's Volleyball
The Princeton women's volleyball team began the season with one goal: repeat as Ivy League champion. A potentially exciting home weekend could be in store soon enough, but it won't matter if the Tigers don't take care of business during the dangerous Harvard-Dartmouth road trip, which begins Friday night against the Big Green.
Princeton is currently 14-3 overall, 8-1 in the Ivy League, and stands a half game behind Yale (15-4, 9-1) in the league stadiungs. The Bulldogs will host Columbia and Cornell, a pair of teams they already swept on the road, this weekend; thus, if Yale wins both matches, Princeton will need to perfect on the road to keep pace with the Ivy frontrunner.
Perfection has been Princeton's game since a 3-0 loss at Yale on Oct. 17; the Tigers have won five straight, including home matches over both Harvard and Dartmouth. Neither match was particularly easy, though. Harvard forced extra points in the first set and lost the second two 25-23 and 25-21. Dartmouth took the second set and had a commanding lead in the fourth before Bailey Robinson served Princeton to an 8-0 run and an eventual 3-1 win. Still, this is traditionally a tough trip for the Tigers, especially recently in Hanover. Over the last four years, Princeton has won two matches at Dartmouth 3-2, won one match 3-1 and lost one match 3-0; the loss, which came in 2006, came back to haunt the team when it lost the Ivy title to Cornell by one match, The 2007 team, which went undefeated, only played a pair of 3-2 matches against Ivy League rivals, and one was at Dartmouth.
The current Princeton team is led by the traditional faces, especially its senior trio of Parker Henritze, Lindsey Ensign and Bailey Robinson. Henritze, the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year, leads Princeton with 3.27 kills per set (sixth-best in the league) and leads the Ivies with .46 aces per set. Ensign leads the Ivy League and ranks eighth nationally with a .422 attack percentage, while Robinson leads the Ivy League with 11.48 assists per set. The Tigers have also gotten solid performances from their newcomers; freshman Cathryn Quinn ranks third in the league with a .371 attack percentage, while classmate Hillary Ford ranks third in the league with 4.26 digs per set.
Dartmouth, which ranks third in the league in blocks per set, is led by Madeline Baird's 3.14 kills per set and Morgan Covington's .90 blocks per set. Harvard's Anne Ingersoll trails only Ensign with a .374 attack percentage, while Lily Durwood trails Robinson with 10.71 assists per set.
You can follow the matches as they happen with LiveStats; you can access the links by clicking on the "Schedule and Results" icon.