PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team (5-11, 2-5 Ivy League) is back at home again on Friday night, finishing up a three-match homestand with Ivy League travel partner Princeton.
 
MATCH 17 – Penn vs. Princeton
Friday, Oct. 22 | 7 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+!
 
The First Meeting
Princeton rolled to a 3-0 (25-18, 25-16, 25-8) win at the Tigers' Dillon Gym on September 24 in what was the Ivy League opener for both teams. Princeton hit .348 as a team and was led by Avery Luoma and Elena Montgomery who had 11 kills each. Autumn Leak led Penn with eight kills, while Daniela Fornaciari and Margaret Planek had six each.
 
About Princeton
The defending Ivy League co-champion from 2019—they beat Yale in a playoff to earn the league's NCAA bid, where they fell in the first round to Penn State—the Tigers (12-3, 6-1 Ivy League) had an 11-match win streak ended last Saturday when they fell to Brown, 3-1, in a meeting of the Ivy's two unbeaten teams. Lindsey Kelly enters Friday's match tops among Ivy League players in assists per set (11.64) while Julia Schner is tops in blocks per set (1.28). Libero Cameron Dames was the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year and second-team All-Ivy in 2019.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*The Quakers are looking to snap a three-match losing streak that included 3-1 decisions to Brown and Yale last weekend at The Palestra.
 
*Senior captain Margaret Planek had 10 kills in both of last weekend's matches; she has a double-digit kill total in five straight matches and ten overall this season. Planek leads Penn with four double-doubles, is second on the team with 146 kills and 93 digs, and third with 30 blocks (1s/29a).
 
*Junior captain Autumn Leak's career high for kills in a match was 15 entering the season. She has surpassed that number six times in 2021 and matched it last Saturday when she had 15 kills against Yale.
 
*Leak—who leads Penn with 225 kills and is third with 88 digs—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.
 
*Leak remains second among Ivy League players in overall kills per set (3.88), behind only Columbia's Noelle Foster (4.09).
 
*Senior Daniela Fornaciari is second among Ivy League players in blocks per set in Ivy play (1.26), behind only Schner's 1.56 average.
 
*Fornaciari had 15 kills last weekend—eight against Brown, seven vs. Yale—and her next kill will be her 100th of the season.
 
*Freshman Sydney Ormiston stepped back into the setter position last Saturday, going the distance and dishing out 35 assists against the Bulldogs. She leads the Quakers with 334 assists this season, with senior Kylie Kulinski (185 assists) and sophomore Jo Armstrong (64) also seeing action recently.
 
*Senior captain Carmina Raquel returned to the starting lineup last weekend as the Quakers' libero, leading Penn with 22 digs on Friday and 14 on Saturday.
 
*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.