CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team closed out its four-match trip to New England with a 3-0 loss at Harvard on Saturday night.

Set scores were 25-15, 25-21, 25-18.
 
Penn is now 2-14 overall, 0-6 in Ivy League play, while Harvard completed a weekend sweep of Penn and Princeton and improved to 11-3 overall and 4-1 in Ivy play.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*For the second time in as many nights, freshman Bella Rittenberg led Penn with nine kills (which tied for match-high honors). She hit .273 on the night (9K-3E-22 A) and also had six digs and a service ace.
 
*Sophomore Claire Deller had five kills, led Penn with two service aces, and had two block assists.
 
*Three different players had three kills on Saturday night: Zada Sanger, Feyi Ogunlari, and Kaya Johnson.
 
*Sophomore libero Abigail Reid tied for match-high honors with 11 digs.
 
*Senior setter Jo Armstrong had 22 assists, had two kills on two attacks, and added two digs, a block solo and a block assist.
 
*Harvard got nine kills from Katie Vorhies while Ashley Wang finished the night with seven kills (.312 hitting), 11 assists, five digs and four block assists. Ryleigh Patterson had six kills, seven block assists and a block solo, while Ava Rauser had six kills and five block assists. One of the top defensive teams in the nation, the Crimson finished the night with three block solos and 20 block assists.
 
How It Happened
Harvard got out to a quick start in Saturday's first set, 7-2, and never looked back. Penn never got closer than four the rest of the way, the last of those coming when kills by Rittenberg and Johnson served as the impetus to a three-point run that made the score 19-15. However, Harvard responded with the next six points which allowed the hosts to close things out. Rittenberg had four kills in the set.
 
Penn scored the first three points of the second set, led by a pair of Ogunlari kills and a Deller ace. The lead expanded to four at 8-4, forcing a Harvard timeout, and the teams essentially traded points with Penn's biggest lead coming at 13-8. The Crimson got within one at 17-16, but a pair of Deller kills on the swing play pushed the Quakers back in front by three and brought another Harvard timeout. Out of that stoppage, the Crimson reeled off four points in a row—bringing a Penn timeout—and then tacked on two more on the other side of the Penn stoppage for a 22-19 lead. Four of the six points in the run came from the Crimson's net defense. Armstrong and Deller blocked a Harvard attack for the next point, and another Crimson attack error got the Quakers within one at 22-21. However, Wang sandwiched a pair of kills around a Vorhies block and that gave Harvard the second set win. Rittenberg had three more kills, hitting .600 in the set.
 
Harvard went up 4-1 and then 7-2 in the third and was content to trade points for awhile after that. Penn got back into it with three straight points that included kills by Ogunlari and Johnson, making it 13-10. The teams then traded points to 16-13, at which point a Penn service error and another Harvard block gave the Crimson a five-point lead and forced a Quakers timeout. The Crimson tacked on another point after the stoppage, to 19-13, and the teams essentially traded points the rest of the way as Harvard finished it off.
 
Up Next
After playing five of its first six Ivy League matches on the road, the Quakers will be home for their next four and six of their last eight. That run starts next weekend, when Penn hosts Cornell on Friday at 7 p.m. and Columbia on Saturday 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.