Volleyball dominates two key Ivy matches on road

The Penn volleyball team reconfirmed its Ivy League dominance this weekend with decisive wins over Yale and Brown.

After a disappointing loss to Cornell on Oct. 12, the Quakers (13-4) came out determined against Yale, beating them expediently in three games on Friday.

The Quakers, who lead the Ivy League in digs and service aces per game, stunned the Elis with their explosive offense, winning the first game 30-19 and hitting .308.

Penn continued its strong play and went on to win the next two games 30-22 and 30-26.

"Yale had trouble with our serves," Penn coach Kerry Carr said. "They had trouble getting in a rhythm with their offense and had a hard time throughout the match because of that fact."

Penn's offensive charge was lead by senior Stacey Carter who finished with a hitting percentage of .318 and a team-high of nine kills. Two standout freshmen, outside-hitters Cara Thomason (six) and Michelle Kauffman (five) contributed 11 of the team's 14 service aces.

"We knew we'd be a better team because they're so young," Carr said. "We were more experienced."

Saturday's match against Brown -- the team with whom the Quakers split the Ivy title last season -- proved to be more of a challenge. This time, Penn relied more on its defense to pull out the win over the Bears.

"Brown was a lot tougher," Carr said. "We got ahead by focusing on blocking skills, shutting down their outside-hitters with our block and digging their middle-hitters that gave us trouble."

The Quakers started off strong, winning the first two games 30-24 and 30-22. They recorded their second game of the season with no hitting errors and hit .481 as a team.

The Bears showed signs of a comeback, squeezing out a 30-28 win in the third game, but their efforts were quickly squashed as the Quakers bounced back to crush Brown in the fourth and decisive game, 30-17.

Rather than crediting Brown, Penn points to its own seven service errors as well as several poor calls by the officials as the reason for the third-game lapse.

"I felt like we were in control the whole match, whether we won or lost [the games]," Carr said.

Junior Elisabeth Kwak-Heferran, who is also a Daily Pennsylvanian general assignments reporter, lead the Quakers with 14 kills and 14 digs against Brown.

With these two victories, the Red and Blue improved to 4-1 in the Ivy League, and gained a timely confidence-builder as they will face undefeated Harvard next weekend. The Crimson (6-0) have only played one game on the road, a factor that Carr hopes will give Penn an advantage.

Though Penn will also face Dartmouth on Saturday at the Palestra, the Quakers are expecting next weekend to be punctuated by the clash with the Crimson.

"The two top teams in the conference [Penn and Harvard] are ach other this Friday at Penn," Carr said. "We have our work cut out for us."

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