Weiss Announces 2012 Women's Volleyball Schedule

The Crimson will face Boston College, UConn and Northeastern in the first New England Challenge (Gil Talbot).

Complete Schedule

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The Harvard women’s volleyball team released its 2012 schedule on Monday which features the first annual New England Challenge and a total of 11 home matches at the Malkin Athletic Center.

“The Ivy League will be very competitive this year and there will be much parity,” head coach Jen Weiss commented. “To prepare for league play we will travel to Virginia Tech early in the season to compete at a high level. With hard work we will fight at the top of the conference standings deep into October and early November. We will be ready for the challenge.”

Harvard is set to kickoff its 2012 campaign at the Virginia Tech Invitational where it will face 2011 NCAA Tournament participant Middle Tennessee State, the host Hokies and Towson. The Crimson will be meeting the Blue Raiders and Hokies for the first time ever, while its matchup with Towson will mark just the second meeting between the teams.

The Crimson opens its home schedule September 7-8 with the seventh annual Harvard Invitational. The Crimson owns a 10-8 record all-time in the tournament, with this year’s senior class of Taylor Docter, Beth Kinsella and Olivia Staffon having posted a 5-4 mark. Manhattan, Providence and Northern Kentucky are each scheduled to make an appearance in Cambridge for the event.

The New England Challenge awaits Harvard next as local rivalries against Connecticut, Northeastern and Boston College are reborn. The Crimson and Huskies played yearly from 1984-1990, but the series has since died down with the teams having met only three times since 2000. Harvard and Northeastern have had several off-and-on series with one another and played last year for the eighth time since 2000. The Crimson and BC played at least once every year from 1981-2005, with 2001 being the only exception, but the two have squared off just twice in the last seven years.

“We are excited to have the opportunity to compete with Boston College, UConn and Northeastern in the first annual New England Challenge,” stated Weiss. “This will be a fun event to showcase the sport of volleyball throughout the area. We look forward to continuing this tradition for many years.”

Harvard will remain on the road as it faces New Hampshire September 18, and will open its Ivy League slate at Dartmouth September 21.

The Crimson returns home September 25 against Holy Cross to open a five-match homestand, the team’s longest since playing seven straight at the MAC in 2002. Ivy League play will get into full swing as Harvard hosts Princeton and Penn September 28-29, with two more home dates against Brown and Yale October 5-6 capping off the stretch.

The Ancient Eight slate continues with a trip to Cornell and Columbia before an October 19 meeting with Dartmouth in Cambridge. Matches at Penn and Princeton will close out October while a visit from Columbia and Cornell opens November. Harvard’s regular season will come to a close November 9-10 with a pair of matches at Yale and Brown.

All 11 matches scheduled to be played at the MAC can be seen live online through GoCrimson.com, or can be accessed On Demand approximately two hours after completion. One year subscriptions are available for $49.95 and allow access to every home event streamed by the Crimson, including football, men’s and women’s basketball and men’s and women’s hockey. For more information or to sign up today, click here.

Harvard is coming off one of the most successful campaigns in recent history as it finished the year 12-12 overall, marking the first time since 2004 the team had finished at or above .500. Docter, an All-Ivy League second team and Academic All-Ivy performer from a year ago, headlines a group of 10 returning letterwinners and will serve as the team’s captain for 2012. Other noteable returners include juniors Erin Cooney, Natalie Doyle and Teresa Skelly, and sophomores Kristen Casey and Caroline Walters.

2012 Women's Volleyball Schedule

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