PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team (6-15, 3-9 Ivy League) closes out the 2021 season this weekend, hosting Cornell and Columbia in the final Ivy League weekend of the campaign.
 
MATCH 22 – Penn vs. Cornell
Friday, Nov. 12 | 7 p.m.
Watch on ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats
 
MATCH 23 – Penn vs. Columbia (SENIOR NIGHT)
Saturday, Nov. 13 | 5 p.m.
Watch on 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+!
 
Senior Night
Prior to Saturday night's match with Columbia, the Quakers will honor five seniors who will be playing at home for the final time: Carly Cohen, Daniela Fornaciari, Kylie Kulinski, Margaret Planek, and Carmina Raquel. Festivities will begin at approximately 4:50 p.m.
 
CORNELL: The First Meeting
The Big Red swept the Quakers in Ithaca on October 9 (25-14, 25-22, 25-19). Planek led Penn with 10 kills, while junior Autumn Leak had nine kills and five digs. Junior Madeline McGregor had six kills and a .333 hitting percentage. Cornell was led by Jillienne Bennett, who had 13 kills and a .667 hitting percentage, while Casey Justus (14 kills) and Camryn Carlo (10) both hit well over .500. As a team, the Big Red hit .443 on the night.
 
About Cornell
The Big Red (7-13, 3-9 Ivy) snapped a three-match losing streak with a sweep of Harvard last Saturday in Ithaca. Justus is fourth among Ivy players in hitting percentage in conference play (.331). Bennett, a senior, was a first-team All-Ivy pick in 2019 while classmate Madison Baptiste was a second-team All-Ivy selection that season.
 
COLUMBIA: The First Meeting
The Quakers escaped from New York with a four-set victory on October 8 (25-22, 25-21, 22-25, 25-19). Leak led the attack with 12 kills, while freshman Ella Green was a revelation with 11 kills and eight digs. Planek had 10 kills and four blocks (1s/3a). Fornaciari had six blocks (2s/4a) and seven kills.
 
About Columbia
The Lions (5-16, 2-10 Ivy)—who play Princeton Friday night—enter the weekend on a five-match losing streak after falling in four to both Harvard and Dartmouth last weekend. Vanessa Pan is tops among Ivy League players in service aces per set in conference play (0.49), while Noelle Foster is tops among Ivy players in kills per set overall (3.95).
 
Quaker Notemeal
*The Quakers are looking to recover from their last two weekends, a pair of trips to New England that resulted in three losses around a five-set win at Harvard.
 
*Leak's career high for kills in a match was 15 entering the season. She has surpassed that number eight times in 2021.
 
*Leak—who leads Penn with 293 kills and also has 102 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 third among Ivy League players in overall kills per set (3.71), behind only Columbia's Foster and Princeton's Elena Montgomery (3.91).
 
*Senior captain Margaret Planek continues to lead Penn with six double-doubles this season.
 
*Planek—who has a double-digit kill total in seven of the last 10 matches and 12 overall this season—is second on the team with 193 kills, 150 digs, and 37 blocks (3s/34a).
 
*Junior Madeline McGregor has 59 kills over Penn's last five matches, an average of 11.8 per match. She had 12 last Friday at Yale.
 
*Senior Daniela Fornaciari leads Penn with 71 blocks (18s/53a) and her .265 hitting percentage is tops among the four players who have at least 100 kills this season. (She has 150.)
 
*Fornaciari had 14 kills at Yale last Friday, the third time in four matches she hit double figures in that category.
 
*Kulinski has settled into the setter role in recent weeks; she had 47 assists against Yale last Friday—one shy of her season high, set a week earlier at Harvard—and followed up with 21 at Brown.
 
*Senior captain Carmina Raquel has made a triumphant return to the libero position, moving into that spot for the last seven matches after an early-season injury sidelined her for several weeks. She has had at least 20 digs in four of those seven matches.
 
*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.