PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team fell to Brown on Friday night at The Palestra, 3-0. Set scores were 25-20, 25-21, 25-12.
 
Penn fell to 3-16 with the loss, 1-8 in Ivy League matches. Brown improved to 15-4 and is now 6-3 in Ivy play.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Freshman Bella Rittenberg had another strong performance on attack for the Quakers, tying for match-high honors with 12 kills and hitting a match-best .500 on the night (12K-1E-22A). She has 26 kills and a .489 hitting percentage across Penn's last two matches.
 
*Freshman Zada Sanger had a match-high 39 attacks on Friday and finished with 11 kills along with four digs and the Quakers' only block solo. No other Penn player had more than four kills.
 
*Sophomore libero Abigail Reid led Penn with 18 digs.
 
*Senior Madison Risch got the start on the outside and finished the night with three kills, two service aces, and 12 digs.
 
*Junior Kaya Johnson also got a start on Friday and ended the night with three kills and a match-high three block assists.
 
*Sophomore Anna Shohfi went the distance at setter for the second straight match and finished the night with four kills on nine attacks without an error (.444), 31 assists, eight digs and two block assists.
 
*Brown got 12 kills each from Mariia Sidorova (.333 hitting percentage) and Jilienne Widener (.333), while Beau Vanderlaan had seven kills and hit .462. Cierra Jenkins had 29 assists and 15 digs, while Ivy digs leader Jessie Golden had a match-high 24. Kate Sheire and Gabby Derrick had two block assists each.
 
How It Happened
Penn was able to hang around through the first two sets on Friday night.
 
In the first, the Quakers were within 8-6 when a pair of Widener kills were part of a three-point Brown run that made things 11-6. That lead grew to eight, at 19-11, but a Sanger kill was the start of a 6-1 Penn run that got the hosts within three (20-17) and forced a Bears timeout. Brown restored order out of the stoppage, Widener and Sidorova kills sandwiching a Kayla Griebl service ace to make the score 23-17. Sanger and Shohfi had kills as Penn tried to make up the difference, but the Red and Blue ran out of points and the first set went to the visitors. Sanger had six kills in the set and hit .308, while Rittenberg had five and hit .556 and Reid finished the set with 10 digs.
 
The second set featured nine ties and three lead changes. Penn used a three-point run to take a 10-7 lead, started by kills from Shohfi and Johnson, but Brown scored the next three to get back level. A Rittenberg kill was followed by a Brown attack error, and Penn held that lead for several sideouts to 18-15. A pair of Widener kills  were followed by a Jenkins ace, making it 18-18 and forcing a Penn timeout, but out of the break Sheire and Derrick blocked a Sanger attack and Widener again put one down. Overall, it was a five-point run for a 20-18 Bears lead. A Sanger kill ended the run, and the teams traded the next four points to 22-21. However, Vanderlaan put down a kill and then Sidorova followed with two of her own and that ended the set in Brown's favor. Rittenberg had four kills, hitting .429.
 
The third got away from Penn quickly, Brown reeling off nine straight points to turn a 2-2 tie into a nine-point bulge. The lead reached double digits at 15-5 and Penn only got margin back to single digits once after that. Rittenberg had three kills on six attacks in the set.
 
Up Next
Penn is back at home again on Saturday, hosting Yale at 5 p.m.
 
For the latest on Penn volleyball, follow @PennVolleyball on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.