ITHACA, N.Y. – After three incredibly close matches to open the Ivy League season, the Big Red earned its first conference victory tonight, downing Penn, 3-2, in Newman Arena. After losing the first set, 17-25, Cornell came back to win the next two, 25-23 and 25-21, before the Quakers forced a fifth set with a 25-17 win in the fourth. In the decisive fifth set, the Big Red jumped out to 6-1 lead and then held off a late Penn push to win, 15-9.
 
Cornell (6-7, 1-3) was led by rightside hitter Kit McCarty, who posted a team-high 16 kills and an impressive .368 hitting percentage (16-2-38). Outside hitters Carla Sganderlla and Emily Wemhoff chipped in 13 kills apiece, with Sganderlla posting a double-double with 10 digs and Wemhoff coming one dig shy. Middle blocker Jenna Phelps was solid with 11 kills and three block assists, while freshman Jada Stackhouse entered the match late in the first set and finished with six kills with no errors on 16 attempts.
 
Senior setter Alyssa Phelps finished with 49 assists and 19 digs, while libero Kiley McPeek posted a match-high 21 digs. Defensive specialists Lily Barber and Chelsea Sincox finished with 11 and nine digs, respectively.
 
As a team, Cornell hit .262 (64-19-172) and defensively finished with five team blocks in front of 85 digs.  
 
Penn (7-9, 2-2) had just one player reach double-digits, as Courtney Quinn had a match-high 22 kills (22-2-60; .333), but Taylor Cooper was also outstanding, hitting a blistering .562 (9-0-16). Setter Sydney Morton finished with 45 assists and 12 digs, while libero Michelle Pereira finished with 20 digs.
 
The Big Red got off to a slow start, hitting just .154 in the first set, and Penn used strong serving from Grace Furrer and Emmy Friedler to turn a 10-10 game into a 24-13 Quaker advantage. Cornell tried to rally with some strong serving of its own from McPeek, but the visitors stole the 25-17 victory.
 
The second set was a back-and-forth affair with 14 ties and six lead changes. With Cornell trailing, 23-22, the Big Red rattled off three straight kills, one each from Sganderlla, Stackhouse, and McCarty, to earn the 25-23 win.
 
Penn responded in the third set and slowly built an 18-11 lead before Sganderlla used some outstanding serving to force three consecutive Quaker attack errors. She also added a service ace and got a kill from Jenna Phelps to bring the home team back within one point (18-17). After tying the game at 20-20 on a kill from McCarty, Cornell outscored the visitors, 5-1 down the stretch to complete the comeback.
 
In the fourth set, Penn jumped out to a 7-3 lead before consecutive kills from Sganderlla, Stackhouse and Wemhoff knotted the game at 8-8. That was as good as it got for Cornell, as the Quakers regained the lead and never trailed again en route to the 25-17 victory.
 
After a service ace from Furrer gave Penn an early 1-0 lead in the decisive fifth set, Cornell exploded with kills from Sganderlla, McCarty, and Jenna Phelps, to go along with a service ace from Stackhouse and a big block from the duo Sganderlla and Jenna Phelps to take a 6-1 lead. The Quakers fought back, cutting the Big Red's lead to 9-8, but a kill from Wemhoff restored the momentum to the home team. Trailing 12-8, Penn called a timeout, but Cornell finished strong with two kills from McCarty and one from Wemhoff to win the set, 15-9.
 
Cornell returns to action tomorrow when it take on Ivy league leading Princeton at Newman Arena at 5 p.m.