Volleyball goes 2-1 in Palestra tournament

One of the marks of a championship team is that different players will deliver key performances at important moments to save the team and help it to victory. Hosting the first annual Sheraton Invitational this past weekend, the Penn volleyball team (7-5) got just that in a tough 3-0 loss to Georgetown on Friday night and in 3-1 victories over Towson and Drexel on Saturday. "This is the result we hoped for," Penn coach Kerry Major said. "[Going 3-0] was unrealistic." If the Quakers had not been more careful, they could have finished the weekend at 0-3. Penn was very flat in the early going against both the Tigers and the Dragons. Penn split the first two games against Towson, each winning by a score of 15-9. At the intermission, Major did not say much to her team but what she did say had quite an effect. "I just let them figure it out," Major said. "I said, 'This is not the way Penn volleyball needs to play. You know how you need to play. Enough said. Bye. Figure it out.' And they did. They came out and did the job." Penn's 15-4, 15-1 finish to the match was led by the Quakers' Long Island connection. Sophomores Stephanie Horan and Kelly Szczerba, both of whom made the All-Tournament team, combined for 35 kills in the match. Szczerba hit .448 and Horan had 14 digs. Four other Quakers also registered double figures in digs against the Tigers. "Kristel [Weaver] really came on, too," Major said. "She had an amazing number of digs [13] for only being in three of the games." Penn's other co-captain, Karin Witte, impressed the opposition with her performance. "She's just a stud over there," Towson coach Catherine Lavery said. "She tooled us and we couldn't seem to shut her down." Lavery was not as impressed with her own team's showing on Saturday morning. "There's a lot of young girls out there that would like to play paddy-cake instead of volleyball, so I'm not real happy," the Tigers' first-year coach said. If Witte was a stud against Towson, it's impossible to say what she was against Drexel. The senior from Milwaukee led Penn with 10 kills against the Dragons -- just one fewer than she had registered for her entire career prior to this season. "Karin really came on," Major said. "[Drexel] capitalized on Kelly and did a great job shutting her down, and had two or three blockers [on Szczerba] every time, and Kelly managed to come through that alright. But Karin rally stepped up. They forgot about her and she came on, and that was great to see." Witte, however, refused to take the credit for the Quakers' triumph over their University City rivals, deflecting it to her teammates. "It was a team effort," Witte said. "We played phenomenal defense later in the match. I was happy with our defense -- Shayna [Higa], she's the stud if you want to talk about that." Higa served well had nine digs against Drexel. Fellow freshman Michelle Kliszewski played probably her best match of the season, racking up seven kills and 12 digs. "I can't believe Shayna only got nine," Major said. "Michelle played well -- she's definitely playing [better] out there." The Quakers once again came out flat, though, hitting an appalling -.049 in dropping the first game 15-4. Penn did then come back, taking the next three games 15-9, 15-4, 15-6. "I don't know if it's underestimating the opponent," Major said. "I didn't hear anything in the locker room like that but I'm sure we're not going to make a habit of it." When the Quakers snapped out of their funk, they did it in a big way. Penn hit .533 in the third game and tallied points on all but one of its serves. "I think we learned that we need to come out strong no matter what the team is," said Penn setter Jodie Antypas, who bounced back on Saturday from a tough defensive and setting night against Georgetown. "Once we got going, we started doing really well." Antypas was not the only member of Red and Blue to struggle against the Hoyas (14-2). Horan had only two kills and hit -.300, and was pulled in the second game. Still, other members of the Quakers played well and the team's overall effort was impressive in defeat. Amy Schutte, the team's lone junior, came off the bench to pick up 10 assists and senior K.C. Potter, who struggled on Saturday, led Penn with 10 kills. Freshman defensive specialist Alexis Zimbalist had eight kills to pace the Quakers. "I'm happy with how the team played," said Kliszewski, who had six kills and five digs. "I think we need to consider that Georgetown is [on its way to being] a top-25 team, and that we played as well as we could." Georgetown won the match 15-5, 15-11, 15-13. In the second game, Penn trailed by as much as six points but cut the Georgetown advantage to 13-11 before succumbing. Penn then led by as much as 9-4 in the third game but the Hoyas stormed back to capture the victory. Penn hit .309 in the final game but was finally done in by tournament MVP Kiran Gill's 23 kills, which led the Hoyas.

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