PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team hits the road for the second Ivy League weekend of the 2021 season. The Quakers (4-8, 1-2 Ivy League) will be in a New York state of mind, making the short drive to the Big Apple for a Friday night match with Columbia, then traveling across the Empire State to meet Cornell on Saturday evening.
 
MATCH 13 – Penn at Columbia
Friday, Oct. 8 | 7 p.m.
Watch (ESPN+) | Live Stats
 
MATCH 14 – Penn at Cornell
Saturday, Oct. 9 | 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 Columbia
The Lions enter Friday's match with a 4-8 overall record and are 1-2 in the Ivy League. Columbia opened Ivy play two weeks ago with a 3-1 win at home over Cornell, but last weekend the Lions fell in three at Yale and in four at Brown. Columbia and Penn have one other common opponent in Akron, which beat the Quakers 3-1 on September 10 and then fell to the Lions 3-1 eight days later.
 
About Cornell
The Big Red—who play Princeton on Friday before hosting the Quakers on Saturday—enter the weekend with a 4-7 overall record and are still looking for their first win in Ivy play. After that opening-weekend loss to Columbia, Cornell fell in four at Brown and in three at Yale last weekend. The only other common opponent between Cornell and Penn is Bucknell; both beat the Bison, 3-0. Senior Jillienne Bennett was a first-team All-Ivy pick in 2019, while classmate Madison Baptiste was a second-team All-Ivy selection that season.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*The Quakers ended an eight-match losing streak in dramatic fashion last Saturday, beating Dartmouth in a five-setter that saw the fifth set go the distance as Penn won it 15-13.
 
*The previous night, the Red and Blue fell to Harvard in four but that match was not without drama. Penn won the second set, 30-28, and then the Crimson needed more than the requisite 25 points to win the tiebreaking third set (26-24) before closing it out in the fourth.
 
*Those sets in the Harvard match were nothing new for Penn; in fact, of the 12 sets that the Quakers played over a three-match stretch against Lehigh, Temple and Villanova the victor needed more than 25 points to win four of them, another one was decided 25-23, and yet another was 25-22.
 
*Senior Daniela Fornaciari shone in both of last weekend's matches. She had five blocks (1s/4a) against Harvard on Friday, then followed up with 11 blocks (4s/7a) in Saturday's five-set win over Dartmouth. Her 11 blocks against the Big Green were the most by a Penn player since at least 2001 and have only been bettered 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).
 
*Fornaciari has been opportunistic at the net all season, with 74 kills and a .323 hitting percentage in 158 attacks. She also leads the Quakers with 43 blocks (10s/33a).
 
*Another standout player last weekend was sophomore Emerson Flornes, who set a season/career high with seven block assists against Harvard on Friday and followed up with two blocks (1s/1a) in the win over Dartmouth.
 
*Flornes also had six kills against the Crimson and seven against the Big Green—she had a .583 hitting percentage on Saturday—and finished the weekend with 13 kills and a .379 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 has nearly twice as many kills as any of her teammates (187) and is second on the team with 76 digs.
 
*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.
 
*Senior captain Margaret Planek nearly had her third double-double in five matches last Saturday against Dartmouth, with 11 kills (.323 hitting percentage) and nine digs. She is second on the team with 106 kills and third on the team with 70 digs and 24 blocks (0s/24a).
 
*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 276 assists, but senior Kylie Kulinski (136 assists) and sophomore Jo Armstrong (29) 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 173 digs and also has 46 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 opened the Meredith Schamun coaching era by taking 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.