Volleyball swept by Ivy foes

There are a few possible explanations for the Penn volleyball team's average and sometimes lethargic performance in two losses against Brown and Yale at the Palestra this weekend. Maybe it was that Brown's uniforms were completely black and the Quakers were just playing around and waiting for a team wearing brown uniforms to show up. Or maybe they were just looking in amusement at Brown setter Corre Myer's tongue sticking out every time she lofted the ball up for her hitters. Whatever it was, the results weren't pretty as the Quakers lost six straight games over the weekend, 2-15, 7-15, 8-15 to Brown (9-6, 1-0) on Friday and 11-15, 10-15, 7-15 to Yale (10-5, 1-1 Ivy League) on Saturday. The Red and Blue (5-8, 0-3) were admittedly slow to react initially, and they showed little resistance in giving up the first game 15-2 to Brown. The Quakers recorded a kill percentage of -0.80 in game one, which indicates that they had more errors than kills as a team. "We took a long time to get in the game mentally. And by the time we woke up in the first game, [Brown] was already up 10 or more points on us," senior middle blocker Sue Sabatino, who sat out the first game in favor of junior Karin Witte, said. The Quakers displayed better fundamentals in games two and three against Brown, but were unable to stop Brown from stretching the front line and isolating the middle blocker to get easier kill chances. "I put Sue in for the second game to change things up," Penn coach Kerry Major said. "We passed well pretty consistently, but defense and transition were erratic. There was a little miscommunication in the backcourt, and we picked it up pretty quickly, but we had to play to their style and keep reacting." The Quakers added an extra setter in the third game, and after a service error at the start used their new formation with success. Penn's team kill percentage improved to a match high of .250 in the third game, but the Bears also raised their mark to .343 behind Kathryn Rice's 15 match kills. "We ran a 6-2 offense in the third game and added a stronger middle blocker," Major said. "During the timeout in the middle of the third game, I told [freshman setter] Jodie [Antypas] to focus on the high sets in the middle. When we executed well, we got points, but we were not very consistent." Sabatino and the other outside hitters were almost always met by two Brown frontcourt players at the net who cut off most of the hitting angle and allowed only a slim lane for the Penn attack while blocking everything else. "We did pass better than we had against Princeton, but it is definitely frustrating when you hit the ball hard and it comes back to you," Sabatino said. During the Quakers' best stretch of the match they scored four straight points to take an 8-6 lead in the third game. They were unable to hold serve consistently, however, and won many sideout points to gain serve only to give the ball right back. "We pulled our middle blocker back to where they were hitting, but we were still unable to consistently serve deep in corners like we had practiced," Whittenburg said. Penn looked to the return of co-captain K.C. Potter to the starting lineup against Yale -- she sat out the match against Brown due to a back injury sustained in practice on Wednesday -- for a confidence boost, but the Quakers again found themselves down 12-2 very quickly in game one. A furious rally reduced the deficit to two in the most hotly contested game of the night, but the rally came too late, as Penn lost the first game 15-11. Once again, Sabatino and Whittenburg were solid in blocking and attack, finishing with 13 and nine kills respectively. "It was really frustrating," Sabatino said. "We made the same errors as we did last night [against Brown]. We hit into their blocks and didn't execute our game plan well. Even when the corners were open, we missed them more times than we hit." At 0-3 in the Ivy League, the Quakers cannot afford to miss many more. After showing strong fundamental passing and transition against non-conference opponents, Penn has yet to impress against the rest of the Ancient Eight.