Strong competition leaves Volleyball with 1-2 record

The Penn volleyball team found something on its trip to the Midwest last weekend.

A little thing called competition.

The Quakers played tough at the 2001 Dayton Invitational, knocking off St. Francis (Pa.), before dropping matches to Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne and tournament-host Dayton to open the season with a 1-2 mark.

"For our first competition, I think it went great," Penn sophomore outside hitter Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan said. "We played a high level of volleyball, a lot higher than we did last year at this time. I think that's a good omen for the rest of the season."

In IPFW, the Quakers faced a team of similar talent and capabilities. The Mastodons (5-4) came out on top in the five-set thriller, winning by scores of 19-30, 32-30, 30-25, 27-30, 15-11.

"They started out slow and gave us a chance to really jump on them and get a bunch of points," Penn sophomore setter Meghan Schloat said. "Halfway into the match, we started to take that for granted. We didn't realize how much they can bounce back and get into the game."

IPFW came back with a vengeance in the second game, relying on senior star Chrissy Miller to generate points. The six-foot outside hitter ended the match with 27 kills and three solo blocks.

"[Miller] was just cranking the ball and we couldn't stop her," Schloat said.

Kwak-Hefferan, who along with sophomore middle hitter Heather Janssen was named to the All-Tournament team, led the Quakers offensively and defensively with 23 kills and 20 digs.

In the third and final match of the tournament, Penn faced a very strong Flyers team that defeated the Quakers in four games, 30-15, 27-30, 30-22, 30-19.

"We knew they were a very strong team, and they were all very tall," Kwak-Hefferan said. "We tried to pick up our defense, talk and control serving and our serve receive."

And while the Quakers weren't always successful at accomplishing those goals against Dayton (5-2), they know the parts of their game on which they need to improve.

"I would say the one thing our defense needs to work on is hesitation," Schloat said. "When a ball is coming at you that fast, you can't hesitate at all. As long as we keep up our communication and be a little bit more aggressive, that problem should take care of itself."

The Quakers did manage to win one match last weekend, defeating St. Francis in their season opener on Friday afternoon.

The Red Flash (0-8) were no match for the Quakers, as Penn rolled in straight sets, 30-14, 30-14, 30-23.

"We knew that their level is not as high as ours, so we wanted to play consistently high and not play down to their level," Kwak-Hefferan said.

St. Francis hit in the negative for the match and could not muster any offense in the three games -- games that went as quick as they come in the sport of volleyball.

And they went quickly despite the multiple substitutions used in the match by Penn coach Kerry Major, who is spending the month of September trying to figure out the best possible player combination on the court in preparation for next month's Ivy League matches.

"We have so much versatility on this team," Schloat said, "so coach is trying to put every girl in every different position to see where it will be best for the team."

The team is also spending this month trying to perfect its first-tempo offense, designed to throw off the timing of opposing blockers. Most notably, quick, low sets to the outside -- called shoot sets -- have replaced last year's high and slow balls.

"The shoot set is harder to nail because it's faster and a little bit less accurate," Schloat said. "But we've been working on that since spring season, and it's really starting to fall into place."

And while there are some aspects of Penn's game that need to be fixed, the problems are self-correctable.

"I think the good thing was that all the weaknesses were things that we could control," Kwak-Hefferan said, "not something that the other team was forcing on us."

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