Yale's Late Rally Falls Short at Penn
Despite 15 kills from Bridget Hearst and Erica Reetz, the Yale women's volleyball team dropped a 3-1 (25-21, 25-19, 20-25, 25-22) decision to Penn on Friday night at the Palestra in Philadelphia. Kelly Ozurovich added a team-high 29 digs for the Bulldogs, who fell to 8-6 overall and 2-1 in the Ivy League.
Down 2-0 in sets, the Bulldogs won the third and led late in the fourth before the Quakers rallied for a 7-2 run to close out the match.
Penn (5-9, 1-1 Ivy) won the first two games of the match and took control. The Quakers used a .343 team hitting percentage in first game, and held off the Bulldogs in game two.
Yale forced nine ties and five lead changes during the second game. Back-to-back kills from Katie Cordell (11 kills, 15 digs) and Hearst gave the Bulldogs a 17-16 lead. Penn bounced back to tally nine of the final 11 points of the set, which ended with a kill from Susan Stuecheli.
The third set started differently. The Bulldogs stormed out to a 6-2 edge with the help of two kills from McHaney Carter.
Later in the third set, the Bulldogs pushed the lead to 22-15 after three straight points with a Kendall Polan kill sandwiched between two Penn attack errors. Yale hit .295 for the third set, which ended on a Cordell kill from Polan, who tallied a team-best 37 assists.
Hearst and Reetz began the fourth set with consecutive kills. Penn's Lauren Martin, who posted a team-best 14 kills, answered with her first of five kills for the set.
With the set tied at 12, a Hearst kill and two Penn errors gave Yale a 15-12 lead and forced the Quakers to call a timeout. Penn came back to tie the match at 18, but kills from Haley Wessels and Hearst gave Yale a 20-18 edge.
The Quakers rallied for a 7-2 run to close out the match.
Yale returns to action tomorrow at Princeton for a 4 p.m. start.