Polan Notches Third Straight Triple-Double in Win Over Big Red

Ithaca, N.Y. -- The Bulldogs started their New York road swing with a sweep of Cornell.

Kendall Polan, the reigning Ivy Player of the Week, posted her third straight triple-double, Maddie Rudnick had a match-high 18 digs and Yale hit .333 in a 3-0 win over Cornell.  Polan hit .480 with 14 kills, 17 digs and 21 assists.

The scores of the match were 25-21, 25-14, and 25-14.

Yale (6-5, 2-0 Ivy) won its third straight match and took control midway through the first game.  With a 6-5 lead, the Bulldogs scored six of the next seven points in a run capped by block assists from Polan and Jesse Ebner.

Mollie Rogers (eight kills) gave the Bulldogs their largest lead of the set at 23-17.  Rogers scored the final two points of the set.   

The Bulldogs hit .419 with 16 kills in a second set victory.

Back-to-back kills from Polan kicked started a 10-3 spurt in the second.  Up 9-7, Polan's kills increased the Bulldogs' lead to 11-7.  

After a Yale service error, Polan and Ebner smashed consecutive kills to force a Cornell timeout.  The teams traded errors before Yale scored three more in a row with Polan and Haley Wessels providing kills to give Yale a 17-9 advantage.

Cornell's Breanna Wong followed with a kill.  The next point ended with a Big Red error, and that was followed by an ace from Rogers.

Kelly Johnson's kill pushed Yale's lead to double-digits in the third.  Johnson finished with eight kills and a team-high 21 assists while hitting .375 tonight.

The Bulldogs reached its largest lead of the night, 23-11, after consecutive Cornell errors.  Cornell responded with three straight points.  

Johnson stopped the run with a kill and an Big Red error ended the match.

Yale heads to Columbia for a 5 p.m. match on Saturday in New York City.  Columbia defeated Brown in five sets on Friday night.  

Report filed by Ernie Bertothy, Yale Sports Publicity