Volleyball faces Brown, yale in opening Ivy League trip

Throughout its 14 pre-conference matches, the Penn volleyball team has tried to motivate itself on more than one occasion by calling various matches "true tests." The Quakers (8-6) will finally get some "true tests" tonight and tomorrow night as they travel to New England to open their Ivy League campaign with two of the toughest squads the Ancient Eight has to offer. "Starting the Ivy League this weekend, it's very important that we play well," Penn coach Kerry Major said. "It would be nice to pull off a win or two and we can pull off a win but I just want to play well. This is what we've been playing our whole preseason for." Penn's first match against an Ivy foe will be tonight in Providence, R.I., as the Quakers do battle with Brown. The defending Ivy League champions stand at 6-7 but that record is deceiving, as the Bears have lost to some very good teams, including a tough five-game match against Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights dismantled Penn 3-0 in the Quakers' home opener on September 14. The Quakers then head to Yale, which went 4-3 in the Ivies last year and bounced the Red and Blue from the Ivy Tournament. Like the Quakers, the strength of the Elis lies in their strong freshman and sophomore classes. So, the Elis will probably be even tougher than they were last season. "They're two strong teams, two smart teams," Penn sophomore Kelly Szczerba said. "But as long as we play strong and play consistently, I think we'll do well against them." The Quakers can afford to be confident because they too are a stronger team this year than they were last year. The key, though, is to be strong on a consistent basis, especially early in the match. The Quakers have not played well in the opening stages of any match since returning from their trip to California three weeks ago. "In our past few matches we've come out kind of slow, and most of the time we're able to work back from that," Szczerba said. "But Yale and Brown are both two very good teams that it would be difficult for us to come back if we come out slow." The Quakers are well aware of their problem and spent quite a bit of time this week in practice working on their mental toughness. "We've been working really hard and I think we put in the work to be successful this weekend," Penn freshman Alexis Zimbalist said. Penn has been working hard toward this weekend for more than just the past week. The Quakers' grueling pre-conference schedule was designed to prepare them for the Ivy season and they enter this Ancient Eight campaign as a much better team than the Red and Blue squad that went 2-5 in the league last year. A year ago, Penn went 5-5 in its pre-Ivy schedule. This fall, against better competition, Penn has registered eight wins in 14 matches, including its first-ever victory in California. Still, there's no excitement quite like finally starting league play. "Our approach to every match should be the same," Penn co-captain Karin Witte said. "But there's going to be a little bit more excitement definitely, because we're in the Ivy League now." If the Quakers can emerge victorious against the defending league champions and a team that beat them twice in 1998, there will indeed be more than just a little bit more excitement for the Red and Blue.

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