Volleyball visits perennial Ivy doormats

The Penn volleyball team must love this time of year. There's the crisp fall air, the turning of the leaves -- and Columbia and Cornell on the schedule. The Quakers (10-11, 1-4 Ivy League) have never lost to the Lions (14-8, 1-4), and they have not fallen to the Big Red (7-10, 1-4) since 1993. Last season, the Red and Blue's only Ivy League victories came against these two weakest links of the Ivy chain. That does not mean that either squad should be taken lightly. The Quakers cannot afford to do that with any opponent, especially after Tuesday night's surprise drubbing by Stony Brook in the Sea Wolves' first-ever visit to the Palestra. "It was really a slap in the face to us that we cannot just go out and play lightly at all," Penn coach Kerry Major said. "We are not that good a team to sit back and just have an off day. We have to be at our highest level for every point or things fall apart really quickly." That is exactly what happened against the Sea Wolves. Penn took a 13-10 lead, then seemed to relax a little bit. After that, Stony Brook outscored the Quakers 35-6 for the rest of the match. Tuesday's loss was perhaps even more demoralizing for the Quakers than their loss a week ago to Princeton. In that match, the Red and Blue failed to hold both a 14-10 first-game lead and a 7-0 second-game lead, falling in a three-game sweep. This week, the Quakers have been working hard in practice to make sure that there is no repeat of those performances in Ithaca, N.Y., tonight and in New York tomorrow afternoon. "It's all about the faith and confidence," Major said. "And about not losing the faith in ourselves because of a really hard loss. That's what we're trying to focus on." If the Quakers can focus on their own play and beat both of their opponents this weekend, they will have a 3-4 record in the Ancient Eight, which would likely be good for the sixth seed in the Ivy Tournament. If Dartmouth, currently 2-3 in league play, falls to both Brown and Yale this weekend, the Quakers could claim the fifth seed, and would likely square off with Yale in the first round. One loss for Penn would likely relegate the Red and Blue to the seventh seed, while two defeats would guarantee eighth place in the league, forcing Penn to face Princeton, Harvard or defending champion Brown in the first round. Those three teams all stand at 4-1 in Ivy play and would all present immediate challenge s to the Quakers. While Major remained unmoved in her opinion that this weekend's matches do not absolutely have to be won, as "nothing matters until the first two days of the [Ivy] tournament," her goals for the team have changed for this weekend from past matches this season. "I haven't focused too much on winning and losing," Major said. "We've been 'have fun, play well, come together, play great defense.' No, this weekend, the most important thing to do is get point 15 on the board three times each match. If we don't do it, we'll come back to practice and learn to do it again, and hopefully get it together by tournament time." Whenever the Quakers do "get it together," it's fairly certain that they will be an important force to be reckoned with. So far this season, it has been evident that Penn only plays at two levels -- Ivy Championship level or Columbia level. The Lions, who are 0-25 against the Quakers all-time, scored their first Ivy victory in two years last Friday when they defeated the Big Red. It may be tough for Penn to take the Lions seriously, but to be successful, they must learn their lesson from Tuesday's loss to Stony Brook. "Columbia is a little harder to get psyched up for," Major said. "But they are good this year and they did beat Cornell. I think we'll see that with the first couple of points. If they don't see that now, they'll see it [tomorrow] afternoon, and how they rebound from that is going to be interesting. I've prepared them as much as possible and hope that they take it to heart." Penn will not need similar convincing to deal with the Big Red, who proved somewhat tougher than Columbia last season, even though Penn defeated both teams 3-0. Under new coach Christie Jackson, the Big Red have played much stronger defense this season, and middle blocker Robin Moore is one of the Ivy's best.

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