As the women’s volleyball team’s season comes to a close, it has had time to reflect on this years ups and downs.
After starting the Ivy season with a 5-1 record, putting it in first place, the Red (15-9, 7-5 Ivy) lost its focus and dropped the next four straight matches, putting the team in a tie for fourth place.
“It was great being at the top, but it showed us how hard it was to stay there,” senior outside hitter Jennifer Borncamp commented.
Despite losing key conference matches last weekend, Cornell rebounded to avenge earlier losses and defeated sixth-place Yale (9-12, 3-9) and second-place Brown (14-10, 9-3).
Against the Bulldogs, the Red rallied back from a two game deficit to take the match at home by scores of 26-30, 30-22, 22-30, 30-21, 15-10.
The next afternoon, the seniors’ final home game of their careers was made even more special with a 3-0 victory over the Bears by scores of 30-19, 30-24, and 31-24. The Red hit .216 as a team, which looked stellar compared to Brown’s -.007 effort. Cornell continued its clean play with only 20 errors on 47 kills, while the Bears committed 38, one more than their total of 37 kills. The big difference in this match was that the Red had 17 blocks to Brown’s four.
Quibell again had match-highs in kills and digs, with 14 of each, while Borncamp contributed nine kills and six digs of her own. Reynolds had another match-high with 31 assists, and freshman outside hitter Kathryn Conrad, who has seen limited action this season while she recovers from a torn ACL, contributed 13 digs.
For her excellent efforts in both matches, Quibell was named Ivy Player of the Week for the first time in her career. She averaged 4.62 kills per game (kpg) on a .320 hitting percentage last weekend. This season, Quibell leads the team in kills and digs, averaging 3.63 and 3.17, respectively. In the league, she is ninth in kpg and eight in dpg, and her 37 services aces puts her second in the league averaging 0.45 per game.
“Last weekend was huge for us because it gave us our confidence back,” Reynolds said.
Tonight, the Red will face Harvard in Boston, Mass., and then travels to Hanover, N.H., to face Dartmouth.
Depending on the success of Brown and Princeton, if the Red can pull out both wins this weekend, it has a shot at second place. The Bears will face Penn and meet with the Tigers, who will face Yale in its other match. If the Red wins both matches, Brown loses both, and Princeton splits, Cornell will be in a three-way tie for second.
“It’s tough knowing that we can’t get first, but we can still get second,”Moore acknowledged.
“They are going to be tough because they want to win just as bad as we do,” head coach Christie Jackson commented on her thoughts of Harvard and Dartmouth.
Besides winning, the team has another goal that it hopes to accomplish. Borncamp currently has 989 kills and 970 digs, and if she can break 1,000 in each of those categories, she will be the first Cornell player to do so.
Although the senior has her sights set on hitting the millennial mark, her first priority is always to the team.
“It would be nice to get the kills and digs, but our first goal is to win,”Borncamp said.
“We are all behind her,” senior defensive specialist Liz Condon declared.
Archived article by Katherine Granish