While the Penn volleyball team's dreams of an undefeated Ivy League season will not be realized, the Quakers are still in good position to win their third consecutive league title.
Cornell (19-4, 9-3 Ivy) snapped Penn's 20-game league winning streak with a 31-29, 28-30, 27-30, 30-28, 15-13 victory Friday in Ithaca, N.Y.
Penn (17-5, 10-1 Ivy) came back to beat Columbia in convincing fashion, 30-18, 30-20, 30-19 on Saturday. With the victory over the Lions, the Red and Blue remain one and a half games ahead of both Princeton and Cornell, though they are only one up on the Tigers (15-6, 8-2) in the loss column.
The Quakers saw a much-improved Big Red team from the one that came to the Palestra two weeks ago. In a well-played game by both teams, Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan led Penn with 27 kills and 20 digs, with Cara Thomason adding 22 kills and 24 digs.
"Cornell played the match of their life," Penn coach Kerry Major Carr said. "Both sides were playing really well. They had a tremendous homecourt advantage."
In general, Carr was pleased with the Quakers' performance, though she cited the team's 16 service errors as the main reason that Penn came up short.
"I'm not happy we lost, but the girls played real hard," Carr said. "We hit well, we spread out well. We should have taken game one, but we had so many serve errors. In that way we really gave them confidence."
Penn was complimentary of Cornell's execution and its ability to capitalize on the excitement of the home crowd.
"Their strongest hitters gave us problems," Thomason said. "Their outsides and middles were very good and they did a good job hitting around our block. And in addition to their strong offense they were scrappy and played good 'D.'"
The impact of the defeat was softened by Cornell's loss the following night against Princeton and the Quakers' dismantling of Columbia. The loss dropped Cornell into third place in the Ivy League standings behind the Tigers.
"We were all pretty upset about the [Cornell] loss," Thomason said. "But we all have the same mindset -- it's only one loss, we're still in first, and we determine our own destiny."
"We have a lot of trust in ourselves. We know that if we pull it back together one loss isn't going to mean anything."
Penn took the first step toward moving past the loss by dominating the hapless Lions (0-19, 0-11) right from the start, riding 14 kills from junior Lynzy Caton to an easy victory. Sophomore Ashley Smith also had a strong game, finishing with eight kills and 10 blocks.
Both Carr and Thomason denied that the team needed a wakeup call after 20 consecutive league victories.
"Our attitude hasn't changed," Thomason said. "It didn't change during the [Cornell] game, and it hasn't changed now. We know everyone wants to beat us. We're trying to take away the good things from the game and build on those. But I don't think we needed to lose a game to regain focus."
The Quakers won't have time to ponder this loss as they face a Temple squad Tuesday night that made it to the round of 16 in the NCAA Tournament last year.
"You're not going to get any better by not playing," Carr said. "That's why I scheduled middle of the week games late in the season. We welcome the challenge."
The Quakers insist that they have already put the Cornell game behind them, and are thrilled with the prospect of playing their final three league games at the Palestra.
"We provided ourselves a cushion, so now that we have lost our destiny's still in our hands," Carr said. "We're not dwelling on our loss."
