PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team (5-9, 2-3 Ivy League) is back at home for its next three matches, starting this Friday and Saturday when the Quakers host Brown and Yale in a pair of Ivy League matches.
 
MATCH 15 – Penn vs. Brown
Friday, Oct. 15 | 7 p.m.
Watch (ESPN+) | Live Stats
 
MATCH 16 – Penn vs. Yale
Saturday, Oct. 16 | 5 p.m.
Watch (ESPN+) | Live Stats
 
Ivy League on ESPN
A reminder that the Ivy League is paired with ESPN and you will be able to find all Penn home games, as well as road Ivy matches and select non-conference road games, on ESPN+ this fall with the same high broadcast quality you've come to expect. ESPN+ is a subscription-based service that offers monthly and yearly packages. Click here to subscribe to ESPN+!
 
About Brown
The Bears come to town tied atop the Ivy League standings with Princeton at 5-0. (Brown and Princeton, of course, will meet on Saturday.) Brown started Ivy play with a 3-2 win at Yale and have gone 4-0 at home since then including wins over Dartmouth (3-0) and Harvard (3-1) last weekend. Junior Sophia Miller was a unanimous choice as Ivy League Rookie of the Year in 2019 and also earned first-team All-Ivy that season, while classmate Kaitlyn Wong was honorable mention All-Ivy. This year, it's freshman Beau Vanderlaan who leads the Ivies in hitting percentage (.383)  
 
About Yale
The Bulldogs—who play Princeton Friday in a matchup of the teams that tied for the 2019 Ivy League title—enter the weekend 3-2 in Ivy play after falling to Harvard in five last Friday but rebounding to beat Dartmouth in four. Carly Diehl was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week after recording a triple-double against the Big Green; she is third among Ivy players in overall assists per set and service aces. Overall, Yale is 10-4 on the season. Junior Sam Bray was a first-team All-Ivy pick in 2019, while senior Kathryn Attar received honorable mention All-Ivy recognition.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*The Quakers saw their modest two-match Ivy win streak end last Saturday when they fell at Cornell, 3-0. The night before that, the Red and Blue gained a 3-1 win at Columbia.
 
*The revelation last weekend was freshman Ella Green; she entered the weekend with eight kills on the season, then had 11 against the Lions and four more against the Big Red, hitting .273 for the weekend.
 
*Senior captain Margaret Planek had 10 kills in both of last weekend's matches; she has a double-digit kill total in three straight matches and eight overall this season. Planek is second on the team with 126 kills and 29 blocks (1s/28a) and third with 72 digs.
 
*Senior Daniela Fornaciari shone the last time Penn was home, against Harvard and Dartmouth. She had five blocks (1s/4a) against the Crimson, then followed up with 11 blocks (4S/7A) in Penn's five-set win over the Big Green. Her 11 blocks were the most by a Penn player since at least 2001 and have been bettered only seven times in program history.
 
*Fornaciari also led Penn with nine kills against the Crimson, then tied a career high with 12 against the Big Green while hitting a team-best .378 on the weekend (21 kills, 4 errors, 45 attacks). For the season she has 84 kills and a .310 hitting percentage.
 
*Junior captain Autumn Leak's career high for kills in a match was 15 entering the season. She has already surpassed that number six times in 2021 and has reached at least 20 kills in four different matches so far. For the season, she is tied with Columbia's Noelle Foster for the league lead in kills per set (4.00).
 
*Leak has already had a decorated season: she was MVP of Penn's Sheraton University City Invitational and earned Ivy League Player of the Week following the event, then followed that up with all-tournament honors at the DePaul Invitational.
 
*The setter position is in flux at the moment. Freshman Sydney Ormiston—who was all-tournament and Ivy League Rookie of the Week following her collegiate debut at the Sheraton University City Invitational—leads Penn with 280 assists, but senior Kylie Kulinski (175 assists) and sophomore Jo Armstrong (63) have also seen regular rotation the last few weeks.
 
*Stepping into the libero position in place of the senior captain Carmina Raquel after she was injured during the season's first weekend, junior Caroline Douglas leads Penn with 202 digs and also has 54 assists.
 
*Penn's trip to Chicago on September 10-11 represented a homecoming for four members of Penn's team who hail from the Chicagoland area: senior Kylie Kulinski (New Lenox/Lincoln-Way Central) and Margaret Planek (Oak Park/Fenwick) and juniors Elizabeth Ford (Evanston/Loyola Academy) and Madeline McGregor (Chicago/New Trier HS).
 
*Penn took team honors at the Sheraton University City Invitational at The Palestra, going 3-0 and beating Coppin State in what was essentially a championship match as both teams entered 2-0 on the weekend. Against the Eagles, Penn lost the first set, won the second, and then pulled out 27-25 decisions in the third and fourth sets to earn a dramatic victory.
 
*Penn announced its captains for the 2021 season ahead of the opener; Leak, Planek and Raquel will lead the Quakers this fall.
 
*Three of the five players who registered at least 100 kills in the 2019 season are back for 2021: Leak (200), Planek (187), and Fornaciari (135).
 
*Fornaciari also led Penn with eight block solos and 61 block assists in 2019, while Planek had 44 block assists and Leak had 29 block assists.
 
*Raquel was Penn's libero in 2019 and led the Quakers with 356 digs, more than twice as many as any of her teammates. Planek (146) and Douglas (144) were third and fourth, respectively, in that category.
 
*Raquel also led the Red and Blue with 21 service aces in 2019, followed closely by Planek (20) and Douglas (18). Fornaciari had 12 aces that season.