Courtesy of Dave Rudin

The women’s volleyball team (7–6, 3–2 Ivy) defeated Columbia (2–12, 0–4 Ivy) and lost against Cornell (10–5, 5–0 Ivy) over the weekend.

On Friday, the Bulldogs played Columbia in New York City, winning 3-0 with scores of 25-10, 25-15 and 25-22. 

“We were able to show our depth, with many people coming in and making a difference,” Betsy Goodenow ’27 wrote to the News.

From the first set, Yale refused to let the Lions get ahead. With Goodenow serving, the Bulldogs pulled ahead by nine points, and another run by Yuri Park ’29 allowed the team to win the set by 15 points.

Yale started the second set with another 4-0 run with Arya Jue ’27 serving. The Bulldogs took advantage of the Lions’ errors and responded with aces and kills, hitting 0.538 on the set compared to Columbia’s 0.269.

The third set saw more back-and-forth action between the two teams. The Lions took the lead in the middle of the set, siding out and regaining the serve each time the Bulldogs seemed to gain momentum. Columbia pulled ahead by as many as five points late in the set before the Elis stormed back on a 9-2 point run to finish the game.

Offensively, the Bulldogs were led by Laurece Abraham ’27 and Chidera Chukwumerije ’26, who had over 10 kills each. Abraham, who was named Ivy League player of the week earlier in the season, had 15 kills and hit 0.737. Chukwumerije had 12 kills and no errors on 15 swings, hitting 0.800. Ava Poinsett ’29 led the team with three aces.

Abraham now has seven games this season with ten or more kills. Her mentality is “swing hard and trust my teammates.” She is currently No. 3 in the Ivy League when it comes to hitting percentage, or success rate on kills.

On Saturday, the Bulldogs lost to Cornell in three sets, 16-25, 15-25 and 28-30. The Big Red went on multiple runs throughout the first two sets, taking advantage of hitting errors by the Bulldogs. Yale hit 0.031 in the first set with only eight kills and hit -0.026 in the second with eight kills in that set as well. On the other side of the court, Cornell accumulated 16 kills and 11 kills in each.

The Bulldogs fought back in the third set, responding to every one of the Big Red’s runs with runs of their own. The highly contested set was played past the usual end score, until Cornell pulled ahead by two to win it 30-28.

In the loss, the Bulldogs were led by Abraham’s 11 kills. Goodenow and Poinsett also had nine and eight kills, respectively. Still, the Bulldogs struggled to get past Cornell’s defense, as the Big Red led Yale in digs and blocks.

“We can still do better at stopping teams from scoring multiple points at a time,” Jue wrote to the News.

The Bulldogs head back home to square off against Dartmouth (5–10, 2–3 Ivy) and Harvard (3–10, 2–3 Ivy) on Friday and Saturday, respectively.