The Penn volleyball team began its defense of back-to-back Ivy League titles by beating archrival Princeton, 3-1, Friday night.
Senior Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan led the Quakers (8-4, 1-0 Ivy) with 16 kills and senior setter Meghan Schloat added 61 assists.
Penn practiced its blocking and defense all week in an effort to contain a dangerous Princeton (6-5, 0-1) offense. Afterwards, the Quakers were pleased that their efforts paid off.
"Every week we have a different focus," Penn coach Kerry Major Carr said. "We worked all last week on our defense, working off the block and keeping the ball in play. We showed the type of D we're capable of playing."
With the regular season underway, the Quakers have been emphasizing group techniques in practice. They go over the scouting report of the next team they'll face and work on an aspect of their game that will need to be sharp against that opponent.
Carr knew that defense and blocking would be important against the Tigers, and Friday night's game confirmed that.
"When we played good defense, we played well," Kwak-Hefferan said. "When we faltered on defense, we lost. Overall, it was better. I finally had a few blocks. When you're blocking well, it can kill a team's momentum."
Penn jumped on the hosts early, taking the first two games, 30-26 and 30-24. Led by Kwak-Hefferan's kills and senior Lauren Carter's .448 hitting percentage for the match, the Quakers were seemingly on their way to an easy victory.
But when Penn plays Princeton in any sport, a win rarely comes easily.
"Princeton will never give you a match," sophomore Cara Thomason said. "You have to earn it, and if you do let up, they'll take advantage."
A sagging Penn defense led to a 30-23 Tiger win in game three.
Penn was staring at a potential game five with the score tied at 15 in the fourth game. But Schloat's serve led a 10-0 run to put the game out of reach. Penn held on for a 30-26 triumph and a three games to one victory.
"The fourth game was all about keeping our intensity up," Thomason said. "During a run like that, we feed off of each other's intensity."
Unfortunately for Penn, that can sometimes go the other way, too.
"Sometimes during the course of a game our intensity is up and down," Thomason said. "When it is down, we tend to struggle with the mental aspects of the game, and that showed in the third game."
Both Carr and Kwak-Hefferan agreed that when the team struggles, it has more to do with its own mistakes than anything the opposition is doing.
"We missed critical serves in the third game," Carr said. "And they served great. So we couldn't run our offense. Contrast that to the fourth: we were fun to watch, we blocked 'em well and we were pounding the ball."
Although they didn't play well for the whole match, the Quakers did successfully complete a difficult task. They won their first league match, they did it on the road and they did it against Princeton -- something valued by any Penn team.
"You always want to open the season up right," Thomason said, "with a victory against Princeton."
