BRONX, N.Y. – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team dropped its first match on Saturday at the Rose Hill Classic, falling in three sets to host Fordham. Game scores were 25-23, 25-23, 25-15.
 
Penn is now 0-2 with Fairleigh Dickinson still on the docket later today. Fordham swept through its tournament, going 3-0, and is now 5-1 on the young season.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*This was just the second time Penn has played Fordham in program history, and the Rams avenged a 3-0 Quakers victory at The Palestra almost exactly 20 years ago.
 
*Junior Madison Risch once again led Penn in kills, with 12, while senior Autumn Leak—who saw her first action of 2022 after missing last night's match—finished with eight kills and senior Madeline McGregor had six.
 
*Freshman Anna Shohfi had another solid performance at the setter spot with 26 assists, three kills (on six attacks for a .500 hitting percentage) and 10 digs.
 
*Another freshman, Abigail Reid, was at the libero spot and led the Quakers with 14 digs. McGregor added nine digs while Risch had seven and sophomore Kat Alexander had six.
 
*Junior Emerson Flornes had a strong day on net defense, picking up six block assists. Risch and McGregor had three each. As a team, the Quakers had 16 block assists.
 
How It Happened – Fordham
The Quakers had a good start in Saturday's first match, scoring five of the first seven points. Fordham used a 6-1 run to turn a 7-5 deficit into an 11-8 lead. That advantage eventually grew to six, before a five-point Penn run made things level at 15-15. It was tied again at 17-17 before the host Rams scored three in a row. The Red and Blue could never come all the way back and fell 25-23, although they got within a point at both 23-22 and 24-23.
 
The second set was another back-and-forth affair. The Rams led by as many as four points on two occasions, at 16-12 and 17-13, before the Quakers used offense (kills by Leak, Shohfi and Risch) and defense (block assists by Flornes and Risch) for a five-point swing and an 18-17 lead. The teams then were tied at 18, 19 and 20 before Fordham scored two in a row to take a lead it wouldn't relinquish. Penn got within one three more times, but the Rams did enough to win again 25-23.
 
The third set was 4-4 before Fordham scored three in a row and five of the next six to go up, 9-5. It was 11-6 when head coach Meredith Schamun called a timeout, which served its purpose as Penn scored three of the first four points out of the break to get within 12-9. However, the Rams took control after that with five straight points, the killer in that run being a Fordham service error that was nullified by a Penn rotation error. Schamun took another timeout at 17-9 and it briefly worked, Penn coming out with three straight points to get within five. However, it was all Fordham after that as the Rams scored five in a row en route to the 10-point victory.