Penn volleyball to do triple duty this weekend

This weekend, Penn volleyball will get to start its season off with a little bit of home cooking.

The Quakers are hosting the Crowne Plaza West Philadelphia Invitational at the Palestra, taking on Colgate on Friday and Cleveland State and Georgetown on Saturday.

The Red and Blue will be facing relatively unknown competition, seeing as the last time they played any of the three schools they will be going up against this weekend was back in September 2004, when Penn defeated Georgetown, 3-0.

Though 10 years have passed and both teams have changed drastically, the Quakers will hope to repeat the success of their predecessors this weekend by seizing a victory from Georgetown.

The Hoyas (2-1) are coming off of a strong showing last weekend at the D.C. Challenge last weekend. They were swept by American University, 3-0, but rallied back the next day to beat George Mason, 3-1, and Howard, 3-0.

Cleveland State (2-2) started its season slower, losing its first two of three matches at the Appalachian Invitational. The Vikings were swept by Appalachian State, 3-0, and fell to Tennessee, 3-1, before taking down Tennessee Tech in a sweep. Their second win of the season came in a 3-0 sweep of Akron on Tuesday.

Colgate (1-0) is closest to the Quakers in terms of games played. The Raiders squeezed by Niagara in a close 3-2 match with the final set finishing 15-13 in favor of the home squad.

For Penn, this season is a chance for coach Kerry Carr — a five-time Ivy League champion entering her 17th season as coach — to tinker with some new lineups.

Star libero Dani Shepherd is gone to graduation, as is middle blocker Susan Stuecheli , but the Quakers still return plenty of talent. Junior outside hitter Alexis Genske and senior middle blocker Kendall Turner will be relied upon heavily in the early going.

And that early production could lead to a stellar start to Penn’s nonconference campaign.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.