Just a week after giving Columbia its first Ivy League victory since 2006, the Red rebounded with its first Ivy win of the year on Saturday — a convincing 25-18, 25-15, 25-18 three-set sweep of the Lions.

In last weekend’s match, Cornell (4-9, 1-1 Ivy) and Columbia (9-5, 1-1) went back and forth until the Lions eventually squeaked out a 25-20, 28-26, 27-25 win. But when the teams came up north to Ithaca and the Red was at full strength, Cornell got back on its feet with the decisive victory.

“I don’t know if it was necessarily having the full roster,” said sophomore Jordan Reeder, who sat out last weekend but was back at setter for the Red on Saturday. “But we spent the whole week focusing on [Columbia]. We were much more prepared knowing what they would do and knowing what we needed to succeed.”

Reeder registered 34 assists over the three games, spreading the ball out to seven Red players who registered kills on Saturday.Holding steady: Cornell volleyball bounced back to beat Columbia on its own turf Saturday.

“In the system we play, it’s not so much the individuals,” she said. “The team is obviously bigger than one or two players, so it doesn’t matter who’s on the court.”

For the Red, which is still under .500 on the season after a tough non-conference schedule, the win over Columbia was an important turning point, especially after its defeat last weekend.

“There was a big difference [between the two matches],” said junior outside Alessa Cekauskas. “We were frustrated last weekend and prepared really well over the week and were determined to come out strong. We played as cohesive unit for first time this season.”

Cekauskas totaled nine kills for Cornell, second only to freshman outside Deveney Pula’s 10. Pula also added three of the Red’s 12 block assists. Over the span of the three games, Columbia had only one team block compared to Cornell’s seven.

“We knew we could play better and finally came through,” Cekauskas said. “We ran our system well with a fast offense and we were able to shut down some of their key hitters with solid blocking and strong defense.”

The Lions were led by freshman standout Megan Gaughn who had 10 kills but just a .097 hitting percentage with seven errors on 31 attempts. Freshman Erin Longinotti had seven kills, and her classmate Kelsey Musselman totaled 23 assists. All three of those individual statistics are lower than what the Lion’s accomplished in last weekend’s match.

As a team, Columbia was held to a .064 hitting percentage — compared to their .224 performance last weekend. The Red moved in the right direction, improving from .155 to .266.

“It was our speed of play — we were moving on the court much better and faster,” said head coach Sarah Bernson. “We watched video of us playing in the first match to show our movement. We knew we wanted to move at a fast speed.”

Bernson has emphasized the importance of keeping a fast tempo on both sides of the net, and the results showed this weekend in the box score. To add to the contributions of the outside hitters, senior captain Juliana Rogers had seven kills and two blocks working out of the middle.

“We are seeing some players step up — and we’re needing their leadership on the court,” Bernson said. “A couple of seniors — like Jessica and Juliana [Misse], our middles, and Jordan. We’ve needed them to be consistent and be leaders on the court.”

Consistency showed for the Red, who had four players hit over .333 with at least four attempts — including a .429 hitting percentage for Misse on seven attempts and a .462 rate for Madeleine Prsybyl with 13 attempts.

Cornell’s sweep of Columbia not only showed the Ivy League that the Red can win, but it showed the team itself what they can accomplish.

“We never let the things that beat us once beat us again,” Reeder said. “We just always want to work hard to get better. The loss to Columbia followed by a win shows that our team isn’t stagnant — we’re going to continually improve.”

“I think this past weekend we demonstrated what we could do as team,” Cekauskas added. “We knew we had skills, but we just hadn’t executed. If we keep working hard and scouting well and going in with the mentality that anything can happen — anything can happen.”