VILLANOVA, Pa. -- With the jeers of opposing fans pummeling the Penn volleyball team every time they served, the Quakers fought through three grueling early-season tests at Villanova's Wildcat Classic this weekend.
Penn was pushed to the limit in two of the three matches, defeating the Wildcats in five games on Friday night. After dropping a close five-game match Saturday afternoon to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Penn came back to take the nightcap from Manhattan in four sets.
Penn played its best in the clutch against Villanova on Friday, grinding out a 23-30, 30-24, 30-21, 28-30, 15-7 win. The Quakers quickly established control in the decisive game, sparked by senior Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan's early kills. A resounding kill by senior Heather Janssen, her 14th of the night, provided the exclamation point.
Although the match was close throughout, Penn never felt in danger of losing.
"When we did lose, it was because of our own errors," Penn coach Kerry Major Carr said. "After the fourth set, I just told them to play smart, and we turned it on in all levels. We started playing smart with our blocking assignments."
Carr noted the solid play of her two freshman liberos, Meredith Damore and Elizabeth Hurst.
"Sometimes as a freshman when the crowd is crazy, it can be mentally really hard," sophomore Cara Thomason said. "But these girls weren't timid, they were loud and definitely contributed to our victory."
Penn dropped a heartbreaker to UMBC in Saturday's first game, winning the first two sets before ultimately falling 30-19, 34-32, 29-31, 25-30, 7-15.
Leading the way this weekend were Wildcat Classic All-Tournament selections Kwak-Hefferan and Janssen. Kwak-Hefferan paced the Quakers to a 30-16, 22-30, 30-21, 30-26 victory over Manhattan with a season-high 21 kills.
"We had a tough loss against UMBC," Kwak-Hefferan said. "Coach [Carr] was disappointed after the first game that we didn't play up to our standards, but we were able to fix a lot of mistakes against Manhattan, and coach was much happier."
Kwak-Hefferan indicated that this tournament was important, despite the fact the matches were non-league. She noted the improvement that the team showed against Manhattan and, like Carr and other players, felt that the majority of the Quakers' problems arose from their own mistakes, rather than anything their opponents were doing against them.
Despite not winning all three matches, Carr seemed optimistic about the big picture.
"We're exactly where we need to be," Carr said. "Give us a couple weeks and we might pound teams like this."
