After last week’s thrilling victory over Dartmouth, the volleyball team is gearing up for another big performance in this weekend’s back-to-back matches against Yale and Brown.

The Red (5-10, 2-2 Ivy) will play host to the Bulldogs (12-2, 2-1 Ivy) tonight in Newman Arena, and will then face off with the Bears (4-10, 0-3 Ivy) tomorrow afternoon. The back-to-back matches will be a chance for the Red to prove its ability to perform consistently, and emerge with a win on both Friday and Saturday.

Following a trend that is becoming more and more predictable, the volleyball team split its weekend matches at home during Fall Break, losing to Harvard, 25-21, 20-25, 18-25 and 17-25 on Friday evening, before defeating its higher-ranked opponent, Dartmouth, the next afternoon, 25-17, 25-22, 22-25 and 26-24.

“A split weekend is an example of our inconsistency,” said head coach Sarah Bernson. “I think we beat the better of the two teams.”

On subsequent weekends at the end of September and beginning of October, Dartmouth (7-7, 3-1 Ivy) defeated Harvard (6-9, 2-2 Ivy) in straight sets. Cornell (5-10, 2-2 Ivy) will face both teams once more this season.

On a day when neither team could get much going through the air, Harvard's ground game picked up the slack, rushing for 251 yards and all four touchdowns and giving up only 62 to a struggling Cornell running attack that has averaged just 57 yards over its last three games. The win boosted Harvard (3-1, 2-0 Ivy), the preseason favorite to win the Ivy League, to the top of the conference standings, while dropping Cornell (2-2, 1-1) into a fourth-place tie with Yale.

When you click on the link for the volleyball team on Cornell’s athletics website, there are two discernible figures in the background. The first is a cutout of former setter Amy Gordon '07, and the second is a close-up of current senior Megan Mushovic. This picture was not selected randomly. Mushovic, team co-captain and starting libero for the Red since her rookie season, is not your average athlete.

When former coach Deitre Collins-Parker left for San Diego State after the 2008 season and new head coach Sarah Bernson took over, it could have been expected that the Cornell volleyball program would experience its fair share of ups and downs in 2009.

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.

Check Monday's edition of The Cornell Daily Sun for more coverage

Colgate 45, Football 23

The setting changed but the outcome certainly didn't; for the second year in a row, Colgate's offense physically overwhelmed Cornell's defense. The Raiders logged 561 total yards, 344 on the ground. The three-headed rushing attack of junior quarterback Greg Sullivan (84 rushing yards and one touchdown) and sophomore running backs Jordan McCord (98 rushing yards and two touchdowns) and Nate Eachus (129 rushing yards and three touchdowns) netted an average of 5.7 yards per carry and accounted for 20 of Colgate's 32 first downs — Cornell had just 15 total first downs.

With a hard-fought win over Cornell last weekend, Columbia broke a 33-match Ivy League losing streak. This weekend, the Lions have the chance to break their 27-match Ivy losing streak on the road when they come to Ithaca to take on the Red again.

The Lions’ (7-4, 1-0 Ivy) win didn’t come easy, being pushed to extra points in the second and third sets by the Red (3-9, 0-1 Ivy). Going back and forth until the very end, the Lions pulled away 25-20, 28-26, 27-25. With the win, Columbia moved to 5-44 all-time against Cornell.

Columbia’s resurgence this season has been led by second-year head coach Jon Wilson and a trio of freshmen quickly making their mark on the team. Outside hitters Megan Gaughn and Erin Longinotti and setter Kelsey Musselman have paced Columbia in its early surge.

Easy points were in very short supply this weekend for the volleyball team, as the Red was forced to fight for every single point only to lose in straight sets, 25-20, 28-26, 25-27, to a tenacious Columbia team in both teams’ Ivy League season opener. Forced to make a quick turnaround, the club then picked itself back up and rebounded less than three hours later with another tough match ­­–– a Cornell win this time –– against Hartford that went all the way to five sets, 17-25, 26-24, 22-25, 25-13, 15-11.

With the win, Columbia (8-4, 1-0 Ivy) earned its first victory over Cornell since 2001, and has now posted its best start since 2000 — the Lions’ best season in history. Including the Hartford victory, Cornell is now 3-9, 0-1 Ivy.

With only three days to recover from a 3-0 loss to cross-town rival Syracuse, the Red opens its Ivy League schedule tomorrow in New York City, taking on Columbia. Cornell will also finish off its non-conference schedule, taking on Hartford tomorrow as well.

When the Red (2-8) made the trip to Syracuse (10-4) Wednesday night, nobody was hoping for a repeat of last year’s 3-0 win by the Orange. But that’s exactly what they got, falling in straight sets, 25-20, 25-15, 25-12.

“We started off really strong, but we just weren’t able to close,” said head coach Sarah Bernson. “Our discipline broke down. We haven’t gotten to that point yet of pushing through and finishing a set. When [our opponent] challenges us at those key moments –– that’s what we need to work on.”