Volleyball on the verge

The volleyball team got a bit of luck and made a bit of its own today, and in the end they're going to sleep as at least the co-Ivy champs. But we all know it's just a matter of time before it's all theirs.

Second-place Yale lost to Dartmouth while Penn was battling Cornell this afternoon. The Quakers were down 2-0 to a pumped up Big Red team playing on senior night, and were even on the verge of being swept when it was 23-20 in the third set. They clawed back miraculously to win that set 25-23 and went on to defeat Cornell in five games.

The Bulldogs' loss dropped them to 8-3 in the Ivy League, and with just three games remaining Penn (20-4, 11-0 Ivy) has to win just one of its next three (all at the Palestra) to be the outright Ivy champs. I doubt I'll ever say this again, but I really wish I could've been in Ithaca tonight. It sounds like it was an absolutely amazing game. Chances are the team didn't even know that Yale had lost, since the games were played at the same time. So they fought furiously to stay undefeated knowing that even with a loss they still controlled their own destiny toward being crowned the victors, and it certainly paid off. It has truly been a special season for this team. Their first chance to clinch the outright title is next Friday the 13th against Harvard. And if the Quakers win and the heavens are truly on Penn's side (despite the ominous date), then the next day Penn football will also beat Harvard to clinch a share of the title.

Check out Monday's DP for complete coverage of today's game and for reaction from Coach Kerry Carr and some players.

After the jump, some more notes on this year.

The Quakers have not gone undefeated in the conference since 1986 when they went 7-0. But they did not win the championship that year since it was decided by a conference tournament and not the regular season record.

Only one team (Princeton in 2007) has gone undefeated since the League switched to a double round robin format in 2001.

Penn won three straight titles starting that year and hasn't won since. They went 13-1 in 2002 and 03, and only one other team (Yale last year) has achieved that record.

Overall Penn has won eight Ivy titles in volleyball, bested only by Princeton's dominant total of 14. Cornell has six, Brown has four, Cornell has three and Harvard has one. Dartmouth and Columbia have never won. This includes shares of Ivy titles dating back to 1977, the last year available in the Ivy League records (Penn won that season).

Junior libero Madison Wojciechowski is on the verge of breaking the single-season record for digs for the third time in as many seasons. She has 478 digs with three games remaining, and the record she set last season was 511. With a 5.37 digs/set average she's on pace to hit 527 digs this year even if Penn sweeps all three of its remaining games. She is already second all-time in career digs at Penn, and if she finishes with 527 that will put her at 1,495, just 30 shy of Cara Thomason's record of 1,525. Knowing Mojo (as her teammates call her) she'll probably get 30 in the first game of the year next year. Or maybe she'll just go crazy in these next three games and break the record in just three seasons. Regardless, she's the best libero of all-time at Penn.

Since she's clearly the best ever at Penn, I decided to look into her numbers in the context of complete Ivy League history. Not including any Princeton players (whose individual career stats were strangely unavailable after a thorough search), only two liberos in Ivy League history besides Thomason have more digs than Wojciechowski has already amassed. Both players were on Brown: Katie Lapinski notched 1,728 from 2004-07 and Tomo Nakanishi tallied 1,762 from 1996-99. Hypothetically, if Wojciechowski were to average five per set, only play three sets per match, and Penn played 25 matches next season (they're playing 27 this year), then she would finish with 1,870. If she matches (not to mention surpasses) her projected 2009 total of 527 then she'll finish her career with an unfathomable 2,022 digs.

I'm sure there are plenty of other numbers that are just as remarkable about this team. The one thing I am very curious about, if anybody wants to help me look it up, is the last time two Penn teams went undefeated in the Ivy League in the same season. That would be incredibly interesting to know, and incredibly difficult to figure out. That stat and others regarding volleyball will have to wait for the end of the season when everything is said and done.