CORNELL 3, HARVARD 0

Seven hours removed from the comforts of Cambridge, the Crimson couldn’t repeat its home 3-2 win over Cornell and fell to its Ivy rival 3-0.

“It’s never really a large factor, but being in a different territory is always a mental and physical strain on the team,” Ogbechie said.That strain contributed to a rout on Friday, as the visiting Crimson could not recover from the evening’s 25 attack errors and suffered just its second Ivy loss on the year.

Freshman outside hitter Laura Mahon did her best to inspire the Harvard offense, hitting for 10 kills on the game. Mahon’s 20 digs were a team-high as well, but the Crimson just couldn’t get started amidst several critical miscues.

In the opening game, Harvard recorded 15 kills to Cornell’s 13, but nine Crimson attack errors kept the momentum with the Big Red. The combination of Cornell’s Rachel Adomat and Elizabeth Bishop—14 and 10 kills, respectively—spurred the Big Red offense. And near the end of the frame, a mounting Harvard run was cut short by five consecutive attack errors, and the Crimson fell 24-30.

“We made errors at times when we had started to pull close to them,” Gould said. “Then it was hard to come back from that, and we let them get runs off our mistakes.”

The Big Red dominated on the defensive front as well, turning up the heat on Harvard’s front line as the contest wore on. Kelly Kramer turned in 19 digs for the Big Red and teammate Bishop added 18. Cornell also recorded 10 blocks in the match and limited the Crimson to just .078 hitting efficiency on the evening.

“Overall, they’re a strong blocking team,” Gould said. “Usually a lot of teams will have a weaker side of the court, but they didn’t. They also have a great defense, and that gets in the hitter’s head a little bit.”

In the match’s decisive set, Cornell’s blockers smothered the Harvard offense and forced the Crimson hitters into 10 attack errors. Harvard’s attempts to overcome numerous offensive mistakes proved fruitless, as the Big Red shredded the Crimson defense with 13 kills and just two miscues. Ogbechie fought the Big Red rally with 11 digs on the match, but Cornell was too strong for the reeling Crimson.

“We just kind of let them control the pace of the match and weren’t playing aggressively against them,” Gould said.