Volleball | Pink pair of wins for Penn at Palestra

When Julia Swanson single-handedly stuffed Dartmouth's Kelsey Johnson, she thought she had closed out Penn's sweep of the Big Green. Shock swept her smile away when the referee called her for a penalty.

Two plays later, though, Swanson tipped the ball just in front of the outstretched arms of Big Green libero Amber Bryant for the win, bringing Dartmouth coach Ann Marie Larese to her knees in frustration.

With the sweep of Dartmouth on Friday and the dispatching of Harvard one day later, the Quakers moved into fourth place in the Ivy League.

The win on Friday was part of the team's Dig Pink initiative to raise breast cancer awareness. Each team warmed up in pink T-shirts and Penn sported pink jerseys.

The night was especially important to the Red and Blue, whose head coach, Kerry Carr, is on a leave of absence recovering from a mastectomy.

"They miss her a ton, and they love her, and they just want her to get healthy as fast as possible," acting head coach Ryan Goodwin said. "She's a mother figure to almost all of them."

Carr's condition has been a source of motivation for the Quakers, who won their last seven sets as part of a three-match winning streak under Goodwin.

"It's been tough because it's a great loss and she's just a great mentor," junior outside hitter Elizabeth Semmens said. "But I think it's made us even stronger as a team."

Semmens has been a key to the team's recent success with 46 kills and just eight errors in the coach's absence.

"She's producing at a really good clip right now, and we're really excited about that," Goodwin said.

The Quakers and their Ivy foes were sloppy this weekend. Both matches featured many long rallies with each team fighting furiously to keep the ball alive, but the Quakers displayed uncharacteristic composure and capitalized on the chaos.

"When it gets like popcorn like that, it's like 'OK, anybody who can get up and slug it first is going to win those transitions,'" Larese said. "And I thought [Penn] did a pretty good job of doing that."

Sophomore setter Megan Tryon was important on those scrappy points, amassing 77 assists over the two games.

"She's so smart with her decisions, where she puts her sets, and she's crucial to our win and to our team," Semmens said.

Just as crucial may have been the energy of the larger-than-usual crowd drawn out by the Dig Pink promotion.

"I felt like we had a home court advantage tonight for the first time in the Palestra," Goodwin said, "and I thought that was really fun to see."

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