HANOVER, New Hampshire - Dartmouth volleyball was defeated by Penn by a score of 3-0 (18-25, 17-25, 12-25) in Leede Arena on Friday evening.

The Big Green dipped to 4-7 and are 1-1 in conference play, while the Quakers improved to 8-6 and are now 2-0 in Ivy League play.

Junior Emily Astarita led both teams with 11 kills, while classmate Stacey Benton had 19 of the team’s 22 assists. 

“Obviously we had very poor execution tonight which didn’t allow us to score points and put together any runs,” head coach Erin Lindsey said. Our serve receive passed really well, but we just were not setting well enough and our hitters were not taking big enough swings to get the ball down against a good defensive team. We have to do better in order to contend in this conference, as the Ivy League has strong defense. That’s what we are going to focus on going into tomorrow.”

Penn opened the match by winning 10 of the first 12 points, going 7-0 before an error gave the home team its first point. With the Quakers ahead, 15-8, the Big Green mounted a comeback, scoring five points in a row off a kill apiece by senior Paige Caridi and Astarita and two errors on the other side of the net to make it a 15-13 set. Another run by Dartmouth tied the score at 18, but that would turn out to be the Green’s final point of the set, as the Quakers scored seven unanswered points to win. 

The visitors took the first point of the second set, but Dartmouth soon caught up, tying the score at six following a Penn error and an ace by Astarita. The Big Green took its first lead of the set off three Quaker errors and an Astarita kill to make it 10-7 in the home team’s favor, but Penn would tie the score and take the lead back soon after. A Dartmouth error would end up giving Penn its second set of the night.

Unanswerable runs were what gave the Quakers their third and final victory. Penn had a 7-2 lead and Dartmouth got two points closer following an error and a kill by freshman Samantha Bozoian, but three kills and an error for the Quakers made it an 11-4 set. Senior Allison Brady got a kill in there before the visitors got four more points (15-5) and got as far ahead as 20-9 before two Penn errors made the score 20-11. Junior Molly Kornfeind would add one more kill, but three straight Quaker points shut the set down.

Dartmouth will return to action on Saturday when it hosts Princeton at 5 p.m.