Newman Arena shook as freshman middle blocker Mackenzie Parsons slammed the Red’s fifteenth point into the ground on Saturday night. In the past seven years, Cornell (14-9, 8-6 Ivy) has won just four total sets against Yale (17-5, 12-2 Ivy). On Saturday, it strung together three in a row to pull off a reverse sweep against a Yale team that has only lost twice in conference play over the past three seasons.
“We've worked really hard in the last year to kind of pinpoint where we're going wrong, and it feels like everything came to fruition tonight,” said head coach Trudy Vande Berg. “I knew we could beat them. In our coaching staff, we all knew we could beat them. We just needed to put it together tonight.”
It was a game that just felt right. The energy in the building was contagious, as fans rallied behind the team and its seniors who were being honored for senior night. The Red fed off that energy, playing with intensity and precision that Yale couldn’t match. It showed that entering the Ivy League Tournament next week, there isn’t a team that the Red can’t compete with, and it certainly will give players confidence as it prepares for the Bulldogs again in the coming days.
The first set was back and forth but ultimately won by Yale with a score of 27-25. The second was another battle that saw the Bulldogs come out on top, 26-24. Despite the early setbacks, the Red refused to be discouraged. Instead, players fought back with relentless determination in the third and fourth sets, ultimately leveling the match at two sets apiece.
“The first two sets were really close tonight, so we knew we were right there,” Vande Berg said. “We used our frustration to keep going, and we started to pick apart at the stuff that we knew that they like to do.”
Despite Yale’s strengths as a team, Cornell had a game plan.
“Yale is one of the best passing teams in the conference, and we had them out of system quite a lot,” Vande Berg said. “In the fifth set, when we served those first couple of balls and we were just rocketing them, I knew we were in a much better mental place.”
During the fifth set, each point the Red scored seemed to captivate the arena more and more. It had been a career night for a lot of players, though everyone was contributing toward the end of the match.
Parsons continued her hot play, racking up a career-high 21 kills on an impressive .541 clip to officially set the new Cornell record for single-season attack rate. Sophomore outside hitter Jaida Sione had a career-high 15 kills on an efficient .289 clip.
The win was an apt farewell to the Red’s senior class.
“They haven't been a part of a winning program since they've been here,” Vande Berg said. “They've all worked incredibly hard to shift the culture into everything they can. To leave the program better than it was when they got here was their ultimate goal, and they definitely did a lot to change it. Their leadership and that experience out there really helped us.”
While the Red dropped a five-set heartbreaker to Brown the day before, it’s tough to imagine members of the team are too saddened by that loss. As it enters the Ivy League Tournament, the Red appears to be peaking at the perfect time.
Next weekend, Cornell goes on the road to play Yale at 7 p.m. on Friday in the Ivy League Tournament semifinal. The next day, it will play either Brown or Princeton at 6 p.m. in either the final or the third-place game. Both games can be streamed live on ESPN+.
