PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team has played half of its Ivy League schedule for 2022, with five of the seven matches on the road. The Quakers will be home for their next five in a row, starting Friday when they host travel partner and rival Princeton at The Palestra to kick off Homecoming Weekend on campus.
 
MATCH 18 – PENN vs. PRINCETON
Friday, Oct. 21 | 7 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+!
 
The Series with Princeton
The Tigers have won the last 12 matchups in this series and 14 of the last 15 meetings. That includes a 3-0 win in New Jersey on September 23. Penn's last win came on September 25, 2015, a 3-1 decision at Dillon Gym, and the Quakers' last win over the Tigers in Philly came in 2013.
 
About Princeton
The Tigers (14-3, 6-1 Ivy League) are second in the standings and in good shape for a spot in the inaugural Ivy League Tournament, in which the top four teams in the standings will play off for the league's NCAA bid. Avery Luoma, a first-team All-Ivy pick last year, leads the league in kills/set in Ivy play (3.57) and had 201 overall. Melina Mahood has 157 and Valerie Nutakor has 153. Lindsey Kelly, a second-team All-Ivy setter in 2021, leads the league in assists per set in Ivy play (11.87) while Cameron Dames tops all Ivy players in digs per set (4.57). She was honorable mention All-Ivy last year but the 2019 Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn is 2-15 overall and three games off the pace in the race for a spot in the four-team Ivy League Tournament at 1-6. (Currently Dartmouth holds the fourth spot with a 4-3 record.)
 
*Penn's record is a bit misleading, however; the Quakers have been pretty competitive in most of their matches. Of the 48 sets lost this season, the Red and Blue have fallen 28-26 three times, 25-23 five times, and 25-22 seven times. They also have hit 21 four times and 20 three times in set losses.
 
*Sophomore Ella Green has led Penn in kills each of the last four matches, including last weekend when she had nine at Brown and six at Yale. Over the Quakers' last 10 matches she has reached double figures in kills five times and nine on two other occasions.
 
*Autumn Leak continues to impress. She had 13 kills in the win over Cornell two weeks ago and has five double-digit kill performance across her last nine appearances.
 
*Another senior, Madeline McGregor, continues to lead the team with 137 kills, but Leak tops the squad in kills per set (2.83). Green is second behind McGregor in total kills (120) and second behind Leak in kills per set (2.40).
 
*Freshman Anna Shohfi enters this weekend leading the team with 332 assists and is fifth among Ivy players in assists per set in conference play (8.10).
 
*Freshman Abigail Reid, Penn's libero, remains second among Ivy League in digs per set, both overall (4.47) and in Ivy play (4.15), behind Princeton's Cameron Dames.
 
*Reid also has 17 service aces this season, tops on the team ahead of McGregor (14) and junior Madison Risch (10). Don't be surprised to see Risch, fellow juniors Julia Bradshaw and Tatum DeMann, and sophomore Kat Alexander brought on to serve through Penn's rotations.
 
*McGregor also leads Penn with 34.0 blocks this season (2s/32a). She is followed closely by junior Emerson Flornes who has 33.0 (4s/29a).and freshman Claire Deller who has 31.0 (2s/29a).
 
*Senior Elizabeth Ford has just 33 kills this season but remains Penn's most opportunistic hitter with a .306 hitting percentage. She also has 13.0 blocks (2s/11a).
 
*Reid and Deller have both earned all-tournament honors this season, Reid getting hers the first weekend of the season at Fordham's Rose Hill Classic and Deller being honored two weeks later at Penn's Sheraton University City Invitational.
 
*Penn started 14 different players during the non-conference portion of the season, as head coach Meredith Schamun and her staff continued to tinker with the lineup ahead of the Ivy opener. Only two players have started all 13 matches to date: McGregor and Reid.
 
*Penn's trip to the Golden State the second week of the season—the Quakers lost matches to CSU-Northridge, Saint Mary's College, and the University of San Francisco—represented a relative homecoming for several members of Penn's team. In fact, nearly half of Penn's roster (seven of 16 players) hails from California including two who consider the Bay Area home: junior Madison Risch (Lafayette) and sophomore Ella Green (Greenbrae). The others are junior Emerson Flornes (Laguna Beach); sophomores Kat Alexander (Los Angeles) and Kaya Johnson (L.A.); and freshmen Claire Deller (Del Mar) and Jalen Tennyson (L.A.). Three of them—Alexander, Johnson and Tennyson—also attended the Marlborough School together.
 
*Penn opened the 2022 campaign at Fordham's Rose Hill Classic, going 1-2 with losses to Niagara (3-1) and the host Rams (3-0) but ending the weekend with a win over Fairleigh Dickinson (3-1).
 
*Penn went 8-15 overall last year and finished sixth in the Ivy League with a 5-9 record. In the Ivy League's 2022 preseason media poll released last week, the Quakers were picked to finish sixth again.
 
*Although she was hired in March 2020, this is only Schamun's second season as head coach of the Quakers. Penn did not play a 2020 season due to Ivy League restrictions around the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
*Seniors Ford, Leak and McGregor are the 2022 team captains.