ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell volleyball team sent its four seniors home with a victory on Saturday night from Newman Arena in a 3-0 sweep of the Penn Quakers. With the win, Cornell improves to 7-14 and 5-7 in conference play, while Penn drops to 4-18 and 2-10. 

Senior Kate Stration had a night she will never forget, recording a career-high 12 kills. She was joined by Eliza Konvicka, who also had 12 successful attacks and a team-high .611 hitting percentage for the Big Red. Other notables in the victory included Sydney Moore (four kills, four blocks), Camryn Carlo (five blocks), and four service aces from junior Megan Bickel. Zada Snager led the Quakers with four kills in the loss, its ninth in the last eleven trips to Newman Arena. 

The first set started out the Big Red's way, as it burst out to an 8-4 lead, thanks to two kills apiece by Konvicka and Stration. The Quakers would respond, tying things up at 12-12 on a block by Bella Rittenberg. But with the momentum there for the taking, Cornell grabbed it and ran, going on a 5-0 run to build the cushion back up to five at 17-12. Stration would have two more kills in that span, and Bickel recorded her first ace of the evening. The five-point advantage was all the Big Red needed, as it cruised to a 25-17 victory in the opening set, with a block by Nicole Mallus and Sydney Moore sealing it. 

Despite the high of the opening set win, the Quakers would make things interesting early in the second, taking a 6-5 lead on a ball-handing error by the Big Red. Cornell would eventually take the lead by two on a service ace by Doga Ozalp, followed by a combo block by Konvicka and Moore to make it 8-6. Penn would continue to hand around until Megan Bickel headed to the service line with the Big Red up 10-8. The junior would not leave the service line for six straight points, including recording three service aces to stretch Cornell's lead to 17-8 and force a Penn timeout. And that nine-point lead was all the Big Red needed, as it secured the second set, 25-16. 

The magic was clearly on the Big Red's side heading into the third set, and it showed how by sprinting out to an 8-2 lead with three different players recording kills in Konvicka, Moore, and Stration. Cornell would bump its advantage to eight with a Konvicka ace and kills by Carlo and Ozalp, continuing to pressure Penn. The Quakers tried to respond late, as a kill by Madison Risch kept the team within reach of a potential comeback. But with a large crowd looking on, the Big Red closed it out in style, as Stration and Alexa Orent recorded consecutive kills to send its four seniors home with a sweep in the team's final home match of 2023.

MATCH NOTES

• Saturday's win is the seventh consecutive home win for Cornell over Penn. Its last loss to the Quakers inside Newman Arena came on Oct. 5, 2013. 
• The Big Red held the Quakers to a season-low -.013 hitting percentage in Saturday's match, making it the first time the team has held an opponent under .000 in Trudy Vande Berg's tenure as head coach.
• Cornell also secured its first season sweep of Penn since 2019, when it took both matches by 3-0 decisions. 
• Sydney Moore secured her 100th block of the season in the third set of Saturday's match. The senior joins Harvard's Rylie Patterson as the only other Ivy League player with 100 or more blocks on the year. 
• Junior Megan Bickel had a season-high four service aces in the win for the Big Red. It is the most aces a Big Red has recorded since Sarita Pomar had five in a five-set loss to Columbia on Oct. 21. 
• Eliza Konvicka had a career-high .611 hitting percentage in the victory over the Quakers, besting her previous high of .455 in a four-set loss to Colgate on Sept. 9, 2022
• The Big Red had a first set to remember with 13 kills and a .524 hitting percentage. It is the highest Cornell has recorded in a single set since recording a .565 attack percentage in the third set of the team's five-set victory at Harvard on Oct. 27.

UP NEXT
Cornell closes out the regular season on the road next weekend. The team will first head to Providence, R.I. to challenge Brown on Friday, Nov. 10 at 7:00 p.m. before heading to New Haven, Conn. to take on the 2023 Ivy League regular season champions in Yale on Saturday, Nov. 11 at 5:30 p.m. Both games will be available to stream on ESPN+.