Vball goes for Ivy crown

The Penn volleyball team knows it had another solid season. Penn went 6-1 in the Ivy League regular season for the second straight year. But in the Ivy League tournament this weekend at Princeton, the records are erased. So are the long practices, the grudge matches and the ups and downs every team goes through. Penn (12-9), which last won the tournament in 1990, knows the feeling. Last year it tied for first with Yale in the regular season, but Cornell upstaged both in the tournament and became Ivy champions. The Quakers, the No. 2 seed this weekend, like their chances and their bracket. They also show no fear of No. 1 seed Princeton. "I think the team feels really good and we're real confident," Penn coach Margaret Feeney said. "I think one of our biggest strengths will be our seed. Being the second seed, we feel pretty good about that. And playing Columbia in the first round should be, on paper, one of the easier matches." Although Feeney insisted the tournament is wide open, and historically the No. 1 seed has had a tough time, Princeton looks like the team to beat. The Tigers, with the home-court advantage this weekend, went undefeated in the Ivy League. They also destroyed the Quakers in three straight games in their lone encounter. "When we played Princeton, we were not there," junior Carol Cit Kovic said. "The whole team knows that, except Princeton doesn't know that. So when they face us, they're going to be in for a real treat." If Penn gets a chance to redeem itself against the Tigers, it will be in the finals Sunday at 3 p.m. Assuming the Quakers get past Columbia, they will next face the winner of Yale and Brown. "We're not looking past a game," sophomore Jennifer Law said. "Columbia is ranked seventh, and we want to beat them as quickly as possible. We're just going to go up and play our game. We know if we play our game, we're going to win." If the Quakers do win the championship, it will be Feeney's second title, but the first one for these players. "This team is a team," Feeney said. "We don't have that one dominant hitter. If we have one person in any of the matches not play well, we're not going to be successful. It's very similar to the situation in 1990 when the team did win it."