Rookie Garners Ivy Volleyball Honors

Ten days after the Harvard volleyball team’s season came to an end with a sixth-place finish in the Ivies, the Crimson (10-14, 3-11 Ivy) finally received a bit of welcome news.

Freshman hitter Kaego Ogbechie was named Ivy Rookie of the Year unanimously by the league’s coaches and also earned Ivy Honorable Mention honors. Ogbechie became the second Harvard player in three years and the third overall to win the rookie honor. Junior co-captain Mindy Jellin won the award in 1999.

Ogbechie was a dominant force in each of the Crimson’s three Ivy victories. The most impressive was the first triple-double in school history when she tallied 25 kills, 14 digs and 10 blocks in a 3-2 thriller over Yale on Oct. 12. In a 3-2 victory over Dartmouth on Oct. 5, she registered 21 kills and 20 digs. In Harvard’s final win of the year—a 3-0 sweep of Princeton on Nov. 9, she fell just short of another triple-double with 12 kills, nine digs and seven blocks.

For the season, Ogbechie placed ninth among Ivy hitting percentage leaders at .252, sixth in blocks at 1.09 per game, and eighth in kills at 3.71 per game.

Co-captain Erin Denniston, who placed fourth in the Ivies with 3.80 kills per game, was Harvard’s lone representative on the All-Ivy Second Team. Denniston graduated Harvard as the all-time leader in kills with 1,474.

There were no Harvard representatives on the six-player First Team. Penn, who defeated Brown in a playoff to win the Ivy title, was the only school with two players on the First Team. The Quakers will make their first NCAA appearance in school history against No. 8 UCLA on Friday.