MATCH STATS
- Princeton def. Yale 3-0, (25-23, 25-18, 25-23)
- Princeton moves to 18-7; Yale drops to 16-8
- New Haven, Connecticut
- Attendance: 1707
- Box Score
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Princeton defeated Yale on in the John J. Lee Amphitheater Saturday night, giving the Tigers their 2nd straight NCAA playoff berth.
The Tigers hit .230 on the night with 43 kills with help from setter, Jessie Harris, with 32 assists. Yale pounded 40 kills on a .153 clip at the aid of setters, Kelsey Crawford and Franny Arnautou, with a combined 31 assists. The Bulldogs out-blocked Princeton 7-5.
Maggie O’Connell paced the Tigers with 12 kills on a .257 clip. Nnenna Ibe added 8 kills and an errorless hitting performance on a .421 clip. Tristan Kott and Kelley Wirth led the offense for Yale with 12 and 9 kills, respectively. Both hit above .24o.
Defensively, both teams had 61 digs. Kate Swanson, libero for the Bulldogs, and Maddie Huber, libero for the Tigers, each recorded a match-high 19 digs.
Princeton will learn their seeding during the NCAA Selection Show, the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
PRESS RELEASES
Courtesy of Princeton Athletics
The start may not have been pretty, but the ending was as magical as any of the Tigers could have hoped.
The Princeton women’s volleyball team overcame a rocky start to sweep Yale in the Ivy League playoff match Saturday night in New Haven. With the win, Princeton has clinched the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Championships, which will mark the seventh time the Tigers have made the NCAA postseason, and the second in as many years.
How rocky was that start? After 24 points, Yale led 17-7 in seemed in cruise control for a 1-0 lead.
A 4-0 run off the serve of freshman Lauren Flaming, and then a 5-0 run on classmate’s Alexa Underwoodserve, got the Tigers back in the set, and Princeton never let that momentum wane. A kill by Nnenna Ibe set up a set point, and sophomore Natasha Skov stunned the Yale crowd with a kill that gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead.
From there, Ivy League Player of the Year Maggie O’Connell took over. She ended the match with 12 kills and two blocks to lead Princeton to a 25-23, 25-18, 25-23 victory. Ibe had eight kills on 19 swings without any errors (.421), while Skov added eight kills of her own. All-Ivy setter Jessie Harris had 32 assists and paced the offense to a .230 attack percentage against the league’s top-rated defense.
Senior co-captain Maddie Huber led the defense with a match-high 19 digs in the final Ivy match of her career, while fellow co-captain Kelly Matthews added nine. Carolina Sklaver added seven kills and two blocks, while Devon Peterkin recorded seven kills and 14 digs.
Princeton, which pushed #10 BYU in two tough sets during a highly competitive 2016 NCAA Championships first-round match last year, will find out its opponent during the NCAA Selection Show, which will be shown the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
Courtesy of Yale Athletics
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Over 1,700 fans filled the John J. Lee Amphitheater on Saturday night as Princeton swept Yale to earn the Ivy League’s automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night in New Haven.
The scores of the match were 25-23, 25-18 and 25-23.
Tristin Kott had 12 kills and hit .312 to lead the Bulldogs (16-8), who earned their sixth conference title in the last eight seasons after tying with Princeton (18-7) in the regular season.
Kelley Wirth had nine kills and four block assists, while Kathryn Attar had seven kills and 13 digs for Yale. Kate Swanson, the league’s defensive player of the year, had 19 digs.
Maggie O’Connell had 12 kills and Jessie Harris had 32 assists to lead the Tigers.
The Bulldogs, who split matches against the Tigers earlier this year, jumped out to a 17-7 lead in the first with the help of five early kills from Kott. The Tigers chipped away and overcame the deficit to take the opener.
After dropping the second set, the Bulldogs held the lead most of the third set but struggled down the strech. Kott gave Yale a 20-18 edge, and a Princeton error pushed the Bulldogs’ lead to 21-18.
Princeton scored the next three points to tie the set. The teams traded the next four points before O’Connell closed out the match with two straight kills.
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