Given the opportunity to start strong at home, the Red did just that with a victory to open a three-game weekend series, but dropped the last two games in a tournament that spanned from Friday to Saturday at Newman Arena. The Red defeated Siena on Friday, 3-1, but lost to St. Francis, 3-1, and Lamar, 3-2. Despite the 1-2 record in the standings, the team was still pleased with the overall effort.

Cornell dropped the first set against Siena on Friday 25-19, but bounced back with three straight wins, 25-23, 25-23 and 25-19 to take the victory. Junior setter Jordan Reeder led the team with 29 assists and junior Kelly Hansen led the Red with 12 kills on 25 attempts with just two errors. The sets were often defined by runs made by both teams to build slight cushions only to see them disappear. However, Cornell was able to pull through for the close victory at the end.

The next game on Saturday morning against St. Francis also started poorly as Cornell dropped the first two sets, 30-28, 25-23, before bouncing back with a third set win, 25-20. The Red almost pulled back in the fourth set to force a fifth set but fell short, 25-21. The sets were all very close as there were 10 ties in the first set alone. Reeder again ran the offense with 31 assists and contributed with 11 digs. Hansen led the team in kills with 14 and junior libero Risa Ka’awa led the team with 20 digs.

The Red gathered itself after the loss and played its best game of the tournament in the third and last game Saturday evening but failed to secure the victory against Lamar. The game was very close throughout and eventually stretched into five sets, 25-22, 15-25, 20-25, 25-22, 23-21. Three Cornell players — Hansen, senior Alessa Cekauskas and junior Madeleine Przybyl, contributed with double-digit kills and Cornell put up better numbers in kills, digs, blocks, and service aces than Lamar. However, the Red was not able to pull the victory out in a back and forth battle.

Coming into the weekend, the team was excited to play and did not have specific expectations. The early win only added to the excitement but the team was able to settle down and play to its potential.

“It was our first tournament at home. We were nervous and didn’t know what to expect,” Hansen said.

“At first we struggled for a bit, but we really found our system and ran it pretty well,” Cekauskas added.

The Red often showed flashes of great play, but then later fell victim to short stretches of bad play. However, the team was able to learn from these mistakes to improve for the future.

“We lacked consistency and we didn’t handle it as we could have,” Hansen said. “As a team, we are fairly young and developing. We’re trying to find our identity and when we do, we’ll really solidify our play and reach our full potential.”

“We started strong but we need to finish the games earlier and not allow the other team to battle back,” Cekasukas said.

Cornell still managed to show some resilience when it pushed the last game to five sets against Lamar. The team was also very impressed by its younger players this past weekend.

“We fought really hard to bring the game to five sets,” Cekauskas said. “It was a battle back and forth, and it really showed that we were capable of playing at a high level. We are looking to build off the foundation that we built.”

“We mixed up some of the lineups so that several freshmen could play. We were proud of how they showed that they can compete, even with little college experience. They did very well,” Hansen said.

Although the team finished the weekend with more losses than wins, the team was still proud of its overall performance.

“We positively progressed through the weekend,” Cekauskas said.

“We faced tougher opponents through the weekend and we were able to improve. We finished on a good note,” Hansen said.