BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – The Big Red volleyball team earned a hard-fought 3-2 victory over Binghamton this evening to wrap up non-conference play with a record of 6-4, amassing the most non-conference wins in a season since 2006 (7) and posting the first winning record out of conference since the 2005 squad went 7-4 in non-league play.
 
Binghamton won the first set, 25-21, before the Big Red took a 2-1 advantage by winning the second (25-17) and third (25-20). The Bearcats responded with a 25-20 victory in the fourth, but Cornell took the fifth, 15-9. Under second-year head coach Trudy Vande Berg, Cornell is now 6-4 in matches that go five sets.
 
Cornell (7-8) had three players reach double-digit kills – Carla Sganderlla (19), Emily Wemhoff (15) and Kit McCarty (10). Sganderlla also posted a career-high 19 digs and chipped in two service aces. Middle blocker Macey Wilson hit a team-high .368 (8-1-19) and finished with five block assists.
 
Senior setter Alyssa Phelps finished the night with 52 assists, moving her into third place overall in Cornell history, surpassing Whitney Fair (2,795; 2002-05) with 2,818 helpers and becoming just the third player in Big Red volleyball history to surpass the 2,800 assist plateau.
 
Junior libero Kiley McPeek posted 15 digs, while defensive specialist Natalie Danenhauer added 10.
 
Binghamton (8-11) was led by Lauren Kornmann's 19 kills, while Gaby Alicea added 12.
 
For the game, Cornell posted a solid .235 hitting percentage (61-21-171) while the Bearcats hit just .166 (54-27-163).
 
Binghamton took the early 1-0 lead in the match after using a 5-1 run midway through the first set to turn a 13-13 tie into an 18-14 advantage from which the Big Red could not recover.
 
Cornell dominated the next two sets, never losing the lead, as it rolled to a 3-1 advantage in the match.
 
The Bearcats stormed back to take the fourth set, and despite a late push by the Big Red to close the gap, the home team went on to win, 25-20.
 
Luck was on the Big Red's side early in the decisive fifth set when McPeek dove and dug up a ball just before it hit the ground. Wemhoff managed to get a piece of it and Sganderlla passed it over the net with so much spin that it dropped to the court to put Cornell up, 4-2. Binghamton fought back to knot the set at 5-5, thanks to consecutive service aces from Kasey Muchnick, but three straight kills, including two from Sganderlla and one from McCarty, put Cornell up, 8-5. The home team pulled within two points twice more down the stretch, but kills from Sganderlla, Jenna Phelps and Alyssa Phelps, along with a pair of hitting errors from Binghamton handed Cornell the 15-9 victory.
 
The Big Red remains on the road next weekend as it wraps up the first half of Ivy League play at Dartmouth and Harvard on Friday, Oct. 14 and Saturday, Oct. 15, respectively.