PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team closed out the 2021 season on Saturday with its second sweep in as many nights at The Palestra. The Quakers engaged in three tight sets with visiting Columbia but pulled out all of them, winning the match 3-0 (28-26, 25-22, 25-23).
 
The match was the final in the college careers of graduating seniors Carly Cohen, Daniela Fornaciari, Kylie Kulinski, Margaret Planek and libero Carmina Raquel. All five of them played key roles in Penn's win.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*In a bit of symmetry, Penn swept its opponents in back-to-back matches for just the second time this season. The first time? The first two matches of the campaign, over Bucknell and Canisius on September 3 and 4.
 
*Penn ended up sweeping Columbia this season, a first since the 2017 campaign.

*The last time Penn swept an Ivy League weekend with matching 3-0 scores was back in the 2012 season (Harvard and Dartmouth at The Palestra).
 
*Penn finished the season sixth in the Ivy League standings at 5-9; the Quakers were picked eighth in the Ivy League's preseason media poll.
 
*Junior captain Autumn Leak led Penn's attack with 12 kills and hit .345 on the night. She also had two digs and two block assists.
 
*Planek also had a solid offensive night—11 kills and a .348 hitting percentage—and also had 15 digs for her team-leading seventh double-double of 2021.
 
*Fornaciari had 10 kills, her fifth double-figure kill match out of the last seven after she did it just once in the Quakers' first 16 matches.
 
*Fornaciari also had three block assists, giving her a team-high 75 for the season (18s/57a).
 
*Kulinski led Penn with 38 assists and four blocks (1s/3a), and also had five digs and a kill.
 
*Cohen led Penn with three service aces and also had four digs.
 
*Raquel led the Quakers with 20 digs and also had a service ace.
 
How It Happened
The first set saw eight ties and four lead changes. It was 8-8 when a series of Penn errors gave Columbia a 3-1 run and forced a Quakers timeout. Columbia scored twice more out of the break, on a service ace and another Penn attack error. The lead eventually grew to 16-10, an 8-2 Lions run, but Penn whittled away at the margin and finally got back level at 19-19 with three straight points.
 
Columbia scored the next three points to regain control at 22-19, but then Penn won five of the next six as Leak led the charge with three kills. That gave the Quakers set point, which Columbia's Saj McBurrows squelched with a kill. The teams traded points to 25-25 and 26-26, before a Columbia attack error and a Fornaciari kill gave the set to the Quakers.
 
Leak had seven kills in the first set and hit .400, while Planek had four kills with just one error.
 
The second set was closer than the first, the teams tying a staggering 14 times and changing leads six times. The first two-point margin came when Penn went up 12-10 on a pair of Columbia errors. It was 19-19 when the Quakers took a lead they wouldn't relinquish on a Leak kill and a Cohen service ace. The Red and Blue traded points with the Lions the rest of the way and closed it out on a Raquel service ace for the 25-22 victory.
 
Planek had four kills on five attacks, while Leak had three more. Kulinski had 11 assists and three blocks (1s/2a).
 
Penn jumped out quickly in the third set, scoring the first five points with four of them coming off Cohen's serve. Columbia recovered, though, and worked its way back into the set with its own five-point run that turned a 13-8 deficit into a tie. That was the first of nine ties in the set, with the last coming at 23-23. A critical play occurred then, Fornaciari's attack being ruled out but Penn challenging and saying it was touched on the way out. The challenge was successful, the point went to the Quakers, and then a Columbia attack error gave the Red and Blue set, match and season.