NEW YORK CITY – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team earned just its second sweep victory of the season on Friday night, defeating Columbia 3-0 at Levien Gymnasium to kick off its final Ivy League road trip of the season.
 
In a match that was much closer than it appears in the final score, set scores were 25-22, 25-20, 25-20.
 
Penn completed a season sweep of the Lions in improving to 4-17 overall and 2-9 in Ivy League play. Columbia fell to 3-17 overall, 1-10 in Ivy play with the loss.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Freshman Zada Sanger had a massive night offensively, putting down 18 kills and hitting .263 on the night. Perhaps appropriately, she ended the match with kills on the last four and five of the last six points Friday night at Levien.
 
*Three other players had six kills each on Friday night: junior Kaya Johnson (who hit .667 on her nine attacks), sophomore Bella Rittenberg (.273), and junior Ella Green.
 
*Sanger also had Penn's only block solo on Friday night, while Johnson and sophomore setter Anna Shohfi shared a block assist.
 
*Shohfi went the distance and had 33 assists and seven digs to go with her block assist.
 
*Sophomore libero Abigail Reid once again led all players with 17 digs, while senior Julia Bradshaw had 10 and Rittenberg added six.
 
*Playing in her home city, senior Tatum DeMann was a massive presence in the third and final set, coming up with four digs—some of them spectacular—two kills on five attacks (.400), and a service ace.
 
*Columbia got eight kills and six blocks (2s/4a) from Soah Franklin and six kills each from Harper Justema and Logan Harlock. Justema and Ruby van der Heide had four block assists each while Juliana Williamson had three, and van der Heide also had 27 assists at setter. Lauren Cho led the Lions with 10 digs.
 
How It Happened
The first set had ten ties to 14-14, at which point Columbia used a 4-1 run to take an 18-15 lead and force a Penn timeout. The Quakers came back to make it 19-19 after the stoppage, then took stepped up the heat with three straight points as Johnson and Sanger put down kills around a CU timeout for a 22-20 lead. Columbia scored to get back to within one, but Sanger got a kill and an ace to give Penn set point and force a second CU timeout. The Lions got one of the points back out of the stoppage, but Rittenberg put down a no-nonsense kill to end the set at 25-22. Sanger had six kills in the set, hitting .364, while Green had four kills on her seven attacks (.571).
 
The teams were tied five times in the second set to 6-6, before Tennyson sandwiched a pair of kills around a Green kill as Penn went up, 10-6. Columbia got back within two twice, at 10-8 and 12-10, but three straight Penn points put the Quakers up at the media timeout, 15-10. The lead bulged to 17-11 on a Johnson kill and a Sanger block, but Columbia won three in a row to get within 17-14. A Lions service error ended the run, then Rittenberg put down kills to answer CU at 19-15 and 20-16. The Lions got back within two at 20-18, but a service error ended that momentum and set Penn off on a 5-2 run as Rittenberg again ended things with a kill. Rittenberg ended the set with five kills (hitting .500) and four digs, while Sanger and Tennyson had three kills each.
 
Columbia used a four-point run to go up early in the third, 10-5, then scored three of the first four points after a Penn timeout to expand it to 13-6 Penn didn't panic, quickly whittling into the lead as kills by Sanger and Johnson and some great defense by DeMann made it 14-12 and forced a CU timeout. The momentum had shifted to Penn's side of the net, though, a Sanger kill and a point spurred by a great save from DeMann tying things at 16-16. CU went up 17-16 and 18-17, but then DeMann put together a kill/ace combo to give the Quakers their first lead since 2-1 at 19-18, The Lions tied it at 19-19 but committed an attack error to put Penn up 20-19. At that point, Sanger took over—she had five kills over a six-point span, the first coming off a tremendous dig by Reid to make it 21-19 and the last four coming in a row after CU got within at point at 21-20. Sanger finished the set with nine kills, hitting .375, while Johnson had three kills on four attacks (.750).
 
Up Next
Penn closes out the road portion of its 2023 season on Saturday night, traveling across the Empire State overnight to face Cornell at 5 p.m. in Ithaca.
 
For the latest on Penn volleyball, follow @PennVolleyball on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.