The Penn volleyball team is keeping the pressure on Princeton.
The second-place Quakers finished a perfect five-game road trip over the weekend, as they swept past Columbia 3-0 and Cornell 3-0.
In improving to 14-7 and 7-2 in League play, the Quakers gave coach Kerry Carr win number 200 of her career.
"It's a great feeling to know that most of those victories were while I was here at Penn," said Carr, whose team now has completed 12 sweeps in its 14 wins this year. "It goes to show what a great program we have here," she said.
Neither whitewash was a clean one, as Columbia and Cornell put up valiant efforts to win game three of each match.
On Friday night, the Quakers handed Columbia their 16th loss of the season, winning 30-28, 30-16, 32-30. Senior co-captain Anna Shlimak and sophomore Natalie Drucker tied for a team-high with 11 kills apiece, while freshman Julia Swanson pitched in with nine kills and a match-high 17 digs.
On Saturday against Cornell, the Quakers jumped all over the Big Red in the first two games 30-23 and 30-22 before being pushed to extra points in game three to win 34-32for Carr's 200th. Again, it was Swanson and Shlimak leading the way for Penn, with 14 and 11 kills each.
The defense also played well, as Linda Zhang tallied six block assists and Kathryn Turner added six in the match.
"It was very exciting," Shlimak said, "We played well and got her win number 200."
"Coach reminded us that we were playing not to lose instead of playing to win," said senior co-captain Laura Black, who chipped in over the weekend with 11 kills and 12 digs in the two games. "Both teams fought back hard and we actually had to come back in both game threes to win."
The Quakers, who now stand two games behind League-leader Princeton, cannot look too far down the road to the Nov. 14 season finale against the Tigers. Next weekend they will face Harvard and Dartmouth at the Palestra before traveling to play Brown and Yale the following weekend.
By that time, the Quakers hope to be in a position to capture their ninth League title.
But while Carr believes the team is playing well, she doesn't think it has reached its peak.
"We're definitely getting better and better every week, but the other teams are getting better as well."
Still, the specter of getting the Tigers at home, presumably for the League title, undoubtedly looms large for Carr and the Quakers.
"I have the date marked off on my calendar," Carr said.
