Volleyball finishes fourth with upset

What a difference a day makes. This cliche aptly describes the turn of events that occurred for Penn at this weekend's Ivy League Volleyball Championship. In the double elimination tournament, the Quakers (11-16, 2-5 Ivy League) lost their opener on Friday to Princeton but then rebounded Saturday with a pair of victories, before being finally eliminated by Yale. Their performance ultimately led to a fourth-place finish in the Ivies. Before the Quakers even arrived at Brown -- the host school -- everything went wrong. Thursday, the bus never showed up to take the team to Providence. Then, when the team finally arrived, its members never received their Friday morning wake-up calls. Despite the extra sleep, Penn opened the tournament with a 3-0 loss to Princeton (19-13, 5-2) by the scores of 15-10, 15-9, 15-8. "We played rather flat," Penn coach Kerry Major said. "I was disappointed with our performance." With the loss Penn was put behind the eight ball. Due to the tournament's structure, if a team loses in the first round, they must win their next six matches to win the Championship. To add to the players' stress, Friday night there was a fire drill at 2 a.m. in the morning. When it seemed like nothing was going right, the Quakers showed their perseverance and heart, turning the weekend around. To start the day Penn polished off Cornell 15-13, 15-6, 15-11. The Quakers were led by senior middle blocker Sue Sabatino, who recorded 19 kills and had an incredible .654 hitting percentage. Although the Quakers dominated Cornell (8-20, 1-6), Major was concerned going into the match. Cornell played a tough game against No. 2 seed Dartmouth in the first round, losing 3-1. According to Major, that Cornell team looked much better than the one Penn beat 3-0 earlier this season. Nevertheless, with their backs against the wall, the Red and Blue took care of Cornell to set up a match with Dartmouth. The Big Green lost to Princeton earlier in the tournament, so both Penn and Dartmouth were facing elimination going into the match. "They are such a defensive team," Major said. "We get really frustrated against those teams. I'd rather play a team that's better offensively than defensively." Unfortunately, Penn wasn't given much of a choice. So, as heavy underdogs, the Quakers took the court and quickly left at intermission down 2-0. The Quakers, however, were not to be denied. In perhaps their greatest three-game performance of the season, the Quakers controlled the rest of the match en route to an impressive 6-15, 3-15, 15-11, 15-13, 15-12 win. Sabatino and Penn freshman outside hitter Stephanie Horan had 22 kills each, while freshman Jodie Antypas and junior Angie Whittenburg led the way defensively with 22 and 21 digs, respectively. Most impressively, the Quakers outblocked the Big Green 20.5-4, led by freshman Kelly Szczerba's one solo block and 11 blocking assists. The momentum from the Dartmouth win translated into early success against Yale (21-10, 4-3) -- Penn's third opponent of the day. The Quakers took the first game 15-12, but Yale wore them out and went on to win 12-15, 15-5, 15-3, 15-7. Rosie Wustrack helped the Elis' cause with 23 kills and a hitting percentage of .439. Horan, who finished the Championship with 51 kills, 36 digs and a hitting percentage of .218 was named to the All-Tournament Team -- the only Quaker and freshman to be honored. "When you're playing, you don't think about awards or stats, but I'm really honored," Horan said. Although they fell short of an Ivy League Championship, with athletes like Horan leading the way, the future looks bright. Major's first season as Penn volleyball coach ended with a successful weekend. The Quakers had the biggest upset of the weekend, enabling them to finish fourth despite their first round loss. Most importantly, however, the Red and Blue showed heart, as they have throughout the season -- enabling them to overcome adversity after the many stumbling blocks the team hit on Friday the 13th.