Box Score

ITHACA, N.Y. – The Big Red volleyball team won a 3-2 thriller over Columbia this afternoon to pick up its first Ivy League win of the season at Newman Arena. After winning the first two sets of the match (25-22, 25-18), Cornell dropped the next two sets (24-26, 20-25) before winning the decisive fifth set (15-13).

The Big Red (3-8, 1-1) was led by Deveny Pula's 23-kill, 18-dig double-double, while Kelly Hansen and Rachel D'Epagnier added 14 and 11 kills, respectively. D'Epagnier also proved to be a force at the net with a career-high 11 block assists, while Hansen registered six block assists. D'Epagnier's 11 block assists rank ninth in Big Red history for block assists in a single match and are the most block assists since Hansen registered 12 against Harvard on Oct. 17, 2008.

Jordan Reeder ran the offense with a career-high 64 assists to go along with 15 digs, four kills and four block assists. Libero Taylor Nieman also registered a career-high in digs with a match-high 27, while Erin McCarthy tallied 14.

For the second week in a row, Columbia (8-3, 1-1) was led by Megan Gaughn with 15 kills and 21 digs, while Monique Roberts (11), Madeline Rumer (10) and Christina Campbell (10) each registered double-digit kills. Defensively, libero Katherine Keller and defensive specialist Cindy Chen had 20 and 17 digs, respectively.

The Lions jumped out to an early 9-3 lead in the first set, but Cornell used a prolonged 12-3 scoring run to take a 15-12 advantage. During the run, the Big Red offense found its groove, getting four kills by Hansen and one each from Janel Forte, Madeline Przybyl, Reeder and D'Epagnier.

Columbia worked its way back into the set, taking a 19-18 lead before a kill by Pula knotted the game at 19-19. Once again, the Lions would go up by one-point, but a kill by Hansen and attack error by Gaughn put Cornell up, 21-20. Hansen and Pula traded kills with Gaughn to maintain a slim 23-22 lead before a service ace from Ka'awa and a kill by D'Epagnier closed out the 25-22 Big Red victory.

Cornell jumped out to an early 4-0 lead in the second set, but the Lions clawed their way back into the set, pulling within one at 5-4. A kill by D'Epagnier was the first of four unanswered points as the Big Red took a 9-4 lead. From there, Cornell steadily expanded its advantage and eventually used four straight kills, two by Pula and one each from Reeder and D'Epangnier, to go up 19-11. A kill by Gaughn and two Cornell errors ended the run, making it a 19-14 contest, but the five points was as close as it would get the rest of the way en route to Cornell's 25-18 win.

The Big Red got out to an impressive 11-4 lead in the third set, but an 8-1 scoring run by the Lions knotted the set at 12-12. A kill by McCarthy returned the lead to Cornell and kills by Pula and D'Epangnier eventually restored a three-point lead to the Big Red, 17-14.

Another small scoring run by Columbia knotted the game at 18-18 and after being tied once more, the Lions slowly built a three-point advantage at 24-21. Facing a Lions' set point, the Big Red fought back with back-to-back kills by Pula and a service ace by Przybyl to tie the game at 24-24, but Columbia got a well-timed kill by Campbell before a Cornell attack error handed the Lions the 26-24 victory.

The fourth set started as a back-and-fourth contest with the teams tying each other five times to a score of 7-7. The Big Red then took a two-point advantage with a Lions' attack error and a kill by Pula. Cornell eventually stretched its lead to four points, 15-11, but Columbia responded with a 5-1 scoring run to tie the game once again at 16-16.

Back-to-back kills by Pula put Cornell back up, 18-16, but once again Columbia answered with two straight points to knot the set at 18-18. Pula and Gaughn exchanged kills for the final tie of the contest before the Lions closed the set on a 6-1 run to win, 25-20.

In the decisive fifth set, Cornell jumped out to an early 3-0 lead thanks to a pair of Columbia attack errors and a kill by Janel Forte, but kills by Gaughn, Rumer and Colleen Brennan, as well as a Cornell attack error knotted the set at 4-4.

The score would be tied twice more before a kill by Rumer and another Big Red attack error would hand Columbia an 8-6 lead. The Lions enjoyed the advantage as the teams traded points to 13-11, but Cornell closed out the game with four unanswered points to earn the win. The run began with a Columbia service error, which was followed by a pair of kills from Forte and a match-ending kill by Przybyl.