“Our energy dropped a little in the second game,” Jellin said. “We lost our momentum.”

The Crimson could not get the momentum back at all in the third game as Yale jumped out to 9-5 lead and never looked back, running away with the game 30-22.

Harvard 3, Brown 0

The Crimson had a nose for victory in its three-game sweep of the Bears, taking each game of the match (30-28, 31-29, 31-29) by a two-point margin.

A kill by Schweitzer followed by a wide lob by Brown outside hitter Elvina Kung allowed the Crimson to escape the third and final game 31-29.

“We definitely had a lot of pressure on us to finish each game,” Gould said. “We did not want to have to play another one.”

Brown bolted to a 10-3 lead in the third behind four kills from freshman outside hitter Rikki Baldwin. As soon as Baldwin left the Bears’ rotation, Harvard rallied to bring the score even at 13. Baldwin returned later in game three to tally five more kills, but the Crimson had enough answers to pull out the victory.

“She was just hanging up there,” Weiss said. “Our block went up and came back down, and then she hit.”

Harvard stumbled out of the gate in the second frame as well, finding itself in an early 7-3 hole. The Crimson captured 13 of the next 16 points—five coming on Brown miscues—to seize control of the match, 16-10.

The Bears fought back to close the gap to two, 29-27. Brown staved off two game points to knot the game at 29. After a Harvard timeout, Crimson freshman middle hitter Katie Turley-Molony registered a kill and Pospisil and Miller combined on a block to seal the 31-29 win.

The early portion of the first game was marked by both teams’ uncharacteristically sloppy play. The teams combined for more missed serves than kills through the first 21 points of the game.

“We’ve had a history of slow first games,” Gould said. “The main thing in the first game was the passing. Our passing was a little off until we figured out what they were doing and we made some improvements from there.”

Harvard seemed to find its offensive flow first, jumping out to a 17-10 lead. Brown chipped away, pulling to within three, 29-26. The Bears got two timely kills from Baldwin to close the gap to one, before Miller gave the Crimson the game one victory with an emphatic kill.

—Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu.