Over the weekend at the Palestra, the Penn volleyball team faced two Ivy rivals in Columbia and Cornell, but it seemed like two separate Quakers teams that came away with a dominating win and a disappointing loss.
On Friday night, a bigger, stronger and more athletic Quakers team controlled the tempo against Columbia from start to finish en route to a 3-0 victory. Everything went Penn's way, exemplified by two incredible digs by junior Anna Shlimak and then later by Meredith Damore that went over for winners.
The Lions (5-9, 0-5 Ivy) played defensively the whole night, and their setters were not consistent, leading to almost as many errors (27) as kills (28). In contrast, junior setter and co-captain Linda Zhang showed her value by setting well for the Quakers (7-9, 2-3) and diving after every ball.
While she struggled serving with three service errors, Zhang led the team with 28 assists.
Penn coach Kerry Carr was proud of her team after the game.
"We did a really good job of keeping them on the defensive with tough serves and putting the ball into areas where their defense wasn't," Carr said. "They weren't necessarily hard kills, but they were smart plays that led to our kills or led to their hitters making mistakes because they were out of position."
The Quakers played a cohesive game by limiting their errors and playing aggressively and intelligently.
Penn's younger players also made key contributions, including sophomore middle blocker Kathryn Turner, who had 12 kills and five blocks.
"We just wanted to be really aggressive, . just go at them with everything we had and come out guns blazing," Turner said.
Saturday night against Cornell (9-7, 4-2), however, no guns were blazing as Penn fell hard, 3-0.
After losing a close first game, the Quakers came out strong in the second to take a big lead. The Red and Blue, however, could not hold on as the Big Red fought its way back to win the game, 31-29.
After two hard losses, Penn was blown out in the third game, 18-30, to lose the match.
The Quakers could not get a break as every close call and net ball went Cornell's way.
"I just have to say Cornell was better defensively than us, both at the block and at the digging game, and that's usually where we're stronger," Carr said. "We didn't play up to our level defensively and passing-wise, which was disappointing."
Penn looks to bounce back from the loss in Ivy League play next weekend against Yale and Brown.
