Even though the Harvard women's volleyball team wasn't expected to end up with the Ivy crown this weekend, the Crimson almost succeeded in robbing the eventual champion.

The third-seeded Crimson (20-13) garnered a second-place finish at the Ivy League Championship yesterday afternoon at Dartmouth, losing to top-ranked Princeton (23-6) in five tough games, 9-15, 15-13, 15-7, 10-15, 10-15. The Crimson's only two losses at the double-elimination tournament came at the hands of the Tigers.

"Everyone on the team is really proud of how we did this weekend," co-captain Kristen Schaeffer. "We were down 2-0 in many of the matches that we played, but we were able to pull it together and fight back to win. I am just really proud of this team."

Co-captain Linda Jellison and sophomore outside hitter Erin Denniston earned spots on the All-Tournament Team for their stellar efforts this weekend. In the final match against Princeton, Jellison chalked up 21 kills and 12 digs, and Denniston added 18 kills to the Harvard attack.

Harvard began its road to the final match with a tough five-game win over Penn Friday afternoon. The Crimson won the first two games easily, 15-9 and 15-13. Penn dominated the next two games to even the score, 15-7 and 17-15.

In the fifth and final game of the match, Harvard pulled out a nailbiter with a close 16-14 victory.

"We just moved on to the next match after Penn," Jellison said. "You just can't look back when you're playing in a [double-elimination] tournament. We just told ourselves that our match against Penn was going to be a warm-up and that we couldn't look at the match before or at the match afterwards. We just had to focus on each match as we played."

In its second match of the tournament, Harvard defeated Brown in five games, 15-7, 14-16, 5-15, 15-11, 15-11. The Crimson avenged a tough five-game loss to the Bears at the end of the regular season that prevented Harvard from winning the top seed at the Ivy tournament.