Volleyball (3-7, 0-1 Ivy) fell in straight sets to Yale (6-3, 1-0 Ivy) in their Ivy League opener on Saturday.
Bruno has historically had a poor record against the Bulldogs, only beating them twice in 33 match-ups — including just one victory from the previous 10 games. The Bears started the match with energy, earning a 20-17 lead. But the Bulldogs tied the score at 22 before taking the final three points to secure the first set.
The first was the only set where the Bears eclipsed 20 points, hitting .171 to Yale’s .180 — the closest they came to Yale’s hitting percentage.
Yale kept up momentum into the second set as the Bulldogs’ offense hit at a match-high .326 clip. Brown’s offense stumbled, hitting just .063 in set two as Yale cruised to a 25-17 win.
In the third set, Yale was simply too much for Bruno, as they parlayed multiple 5-0 runs into a 25-16 win to clinch the match. The Bulldogs’ offense proved efficient, while the Bears struggled to regain the intensity they displayed at the start of the match.
Yale had three players in double figures for kills to Brown’s one. Throughout the match, Yale notched 51 kills to Bruno’s 28.
“Yale’s offense performed well,” Jessie Golden ’26 wrote in an email to The Herald. “I think they scouted where they needed to attack and executed well.”
Golden’s performance on Saturday was a bright spot for the Bears’ defense. She recorded 14 digs in the loss, as the team held Yale to a .239 hitting percentage. This marked a defensive improvement over the .292 the Bears allowed in their previous match against the University of New Hampshire’s Wildcats.
“We worked on defense in the week of practice before Yale, so seeing that our team definitely improved defensively was very rewarding,” Golden wrote. “I’m working a lot on leadership this year, and I think the Yale game brought me a step closer to my future goal of being a great leader for this team.”
Last year, Golden led the team with 446 digs and was second in assists.
Offensively, Brown’s top performer was Mariia Sidorova ’26, who tallied 11 kills. But the offense struggled overall, hitting .119 that night. The second set, where Bruno hit just .063, further highlighted the offensive challenges they faced.
Despite the loss, Golden remains optimistic, noting that the team’s strong start in the first set gives them a strategy to build on as they look toward their upcoming schedule.
“Another main focus for us throughout preseason has been trying to find out how to start games better,” she wrote. “In our game against Yale, we had the best start of our year. Now, we need to combine this aggressive start with the confidence to close out each set and finish,” she wrote.
The Bears will look to snap a three-game skid as they continue Ivy League play. They go on the road to face Princeton (3-8, 1-1 Ivy) and Penn (7-4, 1-1 Ivy) on Oct. 4 and 5.
Gus Bailey is a senior staff writer covering the sports beat. He is a sophomore studying applied math-economics. His interests include data analytics, marketing, social media and of course, sports.
