Volleyball Falls To Seventh In Ivy League After 3-2 Loss Against Cornell

Upper West Side NY

25 October, 2021

12:42 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY JORGE HERNANDEZ OCTOBER 24, 2021 After losing at home against Rider University, the Columbia volleyball team traveled to Ithaca to face off against Cornell on Saturday. In late September, in its first match against the Big Red (6-10, 2-6 Ivy), Columbia (5-13, 2-6 Ivy) took home a 3-1 victory. On Saturday, however, a reinvigorated Cornell squad came firing out of the gates, winning the first two sets handily. The Lions dug themselves out of the two-set deficit, tying the game up at 2-2 to force a fifth set. But Columbia lost its edge and dropped the fifth set, losing the match 3-2. The first two sets followed a similar arc. Both teams were fiercely competitive, keeping the score close. With big offensive players such as outside hitter Madison Baptiste to bolster its attack, Cornell was able to take the lead. In the first set, Columbia recorded only a .290 hitting percentage. The second set was even worse for the Lions, who hit an astoundingly low .000 hitting percentage to go along with their five ball-handling errors. Cornell claimed the first two sets 25-23 and 25-18. The energy in the competition increased as the Lions went into the third set reinvigorated—the Lions knowing if they lost this set, they would have lost the game. The teams were evenly matched at seven moments during the match. With the score at 11-11, Columbia took the lead and never looked back, winning the third set 25-22 thanks to a stellar play by senior middle blocker Isa Lamus. Just as in the third set, the competition between the two teams resulted in a close win for the Light Blue. The score was tight for most of the set until the Lions pulled ahead with the help of big hitters such as Lamus and senior outside hitter Emily Teehan. Columbia took the fourth set by the same score as the previous set, 25-22. In the fifth and final set, the Lions hoped to ride their two-set winning streak to take the game home. The truncated fifth set, which only goes to 15 points, was tied up four times. However, the effects of playing four straight sets seemed to hit the Lions, who made a total of six errors. With Columbia trailing 14-10, Teehan approached the net to score, but the well-positioned Cornell defenders successfully blocked her spike and gave the Big Red the set 15-10 and the match 3-2. Now over halfway through the Ivy League season, Columbia sits at seventh place in the Ivy League, right behind Cornell but still ahead of Penn. The Lions are hoping to end their two-game losing streak this upcoming weekend. They will host Brown and Yale on Friday and Saturday, respectively, at Schiller Court of the Levien Gymnasium. Deputy Sports Editor Jorge Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @jhernandez2001. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.