Volleyball Hopes To Keep Pace In Ivy Race, Honor Class Of 2018 During Senior Weekend

Friday, November 3

Princeton, N.J.

7:00 PM

Princeton University

Columbia

Photo by: Beverly Schaefer

Volleyball Hopes To Keep Pace In Ivy Race, Honor Class Of 2018 During Senior Weekend

November 02, 2017 | Women's Volleyball

LIVE VIDEO: Columbia l Cornell
LIVE STATS: Columbia l Cornell

The Princeton women's volleyball team has two major goals this weekend — the Tigers want to give their senior leaders a fitting final home weekend, and they want to do everything in their power to extend their careers as long as possible.

To do so, the Tigers will have to knock off the two hottest teams in the Ivy League.

Princeton (14-6, 7-3 Ivy) hosts Columbia (9-10, 4-6) Friday night at 7 pm, and then welcomes Cornell (10-9, 6-4) Saturday evening at 5 pm. Admission at Dillon Gym is free for both matches, and each will be streamed live on the Ivy League Network.

The Tigers enter the second-to-last weekend of the Ivy League season trailing first-place Yale by one match in the Ivy League standings. Like Princeton, Yale is also hosting its final home weekend of the year, which includes a Friday night showdown against Harvard (6-4 in Ivy play). Of course, Yale results will be meaningless if the Tigers can't take care of business against the two teams that handed them road losses three weeks ago.

After falling to Yale last Friday night, Princeton bounced back with a 3-0 win over Brown, an effort led by freshman Alexa Underwood (15 kills, 8 digs, .481 attack pct); after dealing with a preseason injury that limited her ability to work within the offense, Underwood has started to show the abilities that made her a valuable recruit last season. She also provides another weapon for a versatile offense that includes three of the Ivy League's Top 10 points scorers (Maggie O'Connell, 3rd/3.67; Natasha Skov 4th/3.64; Devon Peterkin 10th/3.06), and two of the Top 6 in attack percentage (Nnenna Ibe 3rd/.343; Caroline Sklaver 6th/.324).

All-Ivy setter Jessie Harris ranks second in the Ivy League in assists (10.22), and she has helped put together the Ivy's second-most efficient offense (.238).

Columbia used its home victory over Princeton as a launching pad to the second half of the season. After losing its first six Ivy matches, the Lions have now won their last four. Chichi Ikwuazom, who shared 2016 Ivy League Rookie of the Year honors with O'Connell, leads the Ivy League with both a .391 attack percentage and 1.3 blocks per set.

Cornell, which handed Princeton its first Ivy loss of the season, swept both Harvard and Dartmouth last weekend. Senior libero Kiley McPeek has been among the best individual defenders in the league; she leads the Ivies with 4.93 digs per set.

This will be the final regular-season home weekend for the senior quartet of Mary Claire Bartlett, Maddie Huber, Kelly Matthews, and Alex Thompson. They have helped lead Princeton to back-to-back Ivy League titles, and they aren't finished in their pursuit of a third this fall.