NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Big Red volleyball team gave Yale all that it could handle in New Haven, but the Bulldogs rebounded from an opening set loss to earn the 3-1 victory this evening at Lee Amphitheater. With the win, Yale remains in second place in the Ivy League with a record of 10-4 overall and 4-1 in conference play, while Cornell slips to 6-8 overall and 2-3 in the Ivy League.
Cornell won the first set, 25-20, before falling 27-29, 22-25, and 22-25.
Samanta Arenas led the Big Red with a 19-kill, 16-dig double-double. She also finished with a solid .273 hitting percentage. Sophomore middle
Jenna Phelps capped a solid weekend with 13 kills and just four errors on 27 attempts for a .333 hitting percentage, while her counterpart
Jada Stackhouse finished with seven kills and no errors on 17 attempts for a team-high .412 hitting percentage to go along with four total blocks.
Kara Rogers and
Kit McCarty also finished with 10 kills apiece.
As a team, the Big Red finished with its second-highest hitting percentage of the season (.243) and its most kills on the year (68).
Three Big Red finished with double-digit digs – Arenas (16),
Zoe Chamness (14) and
Kiley McPeek (11) – as Cornell out-dug Yale, 80-73.
Chamness also finished with a career-high 31 assists, while senior
Chelsea Sincox handed out 20 helpers.
Yale was led by Kathryn Attar and Izzy Simqu with 15 and 13 kills, respectively. Simqu hit a blistering .545 (13-1-22), while Attar finished at .371 (15-2-35). Tristin Kott also finished in double-digits (10) and hit .333 (10-2-24).
As a team, the Bulldogs hit .271.
The Big Red's win was the most lopsided of the night, as the visitors led wire-to-wire and held Yale to just .133 hitting (13-7-45), the lowest by either squad during the match.
Midway through the second set, Yale used a 5-0 run to go up 18-14, and eventually pushed its lead to five points (21-17) before a kill from Rogers sparked a run that brought the Big Red within one (22-21). The Bulldogs regrouped and got to match point (24-22) but a kill from McCarty and back-to-back kills from Arenas handed Cornell the 25-24 lead. The teams traded kills the rest of the way before consecutive kills form Attar and Kelsey Crawford gave Yale the 29-27 victory.
The final two sets were both tightly contested, featuring a combined 18 ties and seven lead changes, and in both sets the score was tied at 22-22 before the Bulldogs eventually went on to win 25-22.
The Big Red hosts to its first full slate of Ivy League games when it welcomes Princeton and Penn to Newman Arena on Oct. 13 and 14, respectively. The game with the Tigers will start at 7 p.m., while the contest with the Quakers will begin at 5 p.m.
