Ivy foes get served at the Palestra

Facing the one Ivy League team that took them down last year, the Quakers entered the Palestra Saturday night ready to make sure losing to Harvard didn’t become a trend.

In a dominant three-set performance, Penn volleyball swept the Crimson, 25-9, 25-12, 25-20, to complete a successful weekend that began with a narrow 3-2 victory over Dartmouth.

“We were very focused and had a great scouting report and followed it to the ‘T’,” coach Kerry Carr told Penn Athletics, “and absolutely stopped anything Harvard threw at us in the first game.”

That first game was punctuated by a 10-point Penn run with junior Logan Johnson serving. Sophomore Amanda Pacheco and senior Julia Swanson combined for five kills during the streak.

Swanson recorded 11 kills and 15 digs in the match, her third consecutive double-double.

The Quakers (8-9, 4-1 Ivy) would not let up, opening the second set with 13 straight points over Harvard (5-13, 2-4).

“We just kept pressing,” Carr said, “which was something that our team had failed to do in the past when we were up.”

Friday night, Penn hosted Dartmouth (12-5, 3-3), winning in a decidedly different manner.

The Quakers dropped the first set but won the second and third and was finally able to finish the match in the fifth set.

Sophomore Lauren Martin boasted a season-high 19 kills, and on defense, senior Madison Wojciechowski led with 25 of the team’s 92 digs.

The Ivy weekend sweep helped quell doubts as to whether team is capable of winning the League for a second straight year.

After opening the season 4-9 and losing the opening conference bout to Princeton, the Quakers have now won four straight and only trail the Tigers (10-6, 5-0) in the standings.

Carr also became the program’s all-time win leader with the triumph over Dartmouth. She now has 205 wins (.603 win percentage) at Penn.

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