PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team continues a five-match Ivy League homestand this weekend with two more contests at The Palestra. Dartmouth and Harvard make the long trip from Northern New England to Philadelphia.
 
Penn's match Friday with Dartmouth will be the program's annual Dig Pink Match, as the Quakers team with the Sideout Foundation. Learn more about Dig Pink here!
 
MATCH 19 – PENN vs. DARTMOUTH
DIG PINK MATCH
Friday, Oct. 28 | 7 p.m.
Watch on ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats
 
MATCH 20 – PENN vs. HARVARD
Saturday, Oct. 29 | 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+!
 
The Series with Dartmouth
The Quakers have dominated much of this series, but things have been tight in recent years with Penn winning just four of the last eight meetings. That includes Dartmouth's 3-1 win earlier this month in Hanover. Last season, the Quakers won 3-2 at The Palestra but the Big Green swept 3-0 in Hanover four weeks later.
 
The Series with Harvard
The Crimson have a 7-4 lead over the last 11 meetings in this series, including a 3-2 victory in Cambridge on September 30. Penn will try to continue a series trend, though, the teams having split the series each of the last two seasons. Last year, Harvard came to Philly and downed the Quakers 3-1, but four weeks later Penn went to Cambridge and pulled out an 18-16 win in the fifth set for a dramatic, 3-2 win.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn is 2-16 overall and four games off the pace in the race for a spot in the four-team Ivy League Tournament at 1-7. (Currently Dartmouth and Brown hold the final two spots, both with 5-3 records.)
 
*Penn's record is a bit misleading, however; the Quakers have been pretty competitive in most of their matches. Of the 51 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 both 21 and 20 four times in set losses.
 
*Autumn Leak continues to impress. She had 11 kills to lead Penn last Friday against Princeton and has reached double figures in that category six times in the last 10 matches (including four of seven Ivy matches).
 
*Sophomore Ella Green had led Penn in kills for four straight matches before last Friday; she had 10 against the Tigers to finish one behind Leak. Over the Quakers' last 11 matches she has reached double figures in kills six times and had nine on two other occasions.
 
*Another senior, Madeline McGregor, also had 10 kills last Friday and continues to lead the team with 147. Leak tops the squad in kills per set (2.83). Green is tied with Leak for second behind McGregor in total kills (130) and second behind Leak in kills per set (2.41).
 
*Freshman Abigail Reid, Penn's libero, remains second among Ivy League players in overall digs per set (4.52)—behind only Princeton's Cameron Dames (4.85)—and is third in Ivy matches (4.29) behind Dames (4.52) and Yale's Maile Somera (4.31).
 
*Reid's overall 4.52 digs-per-set average is fourth among freshmen nationally and 60th overall.
 
*Freshman Anna Shohfi enters this weekend leading the team with 367 assists and remains fifth among Ivy players in assists per set in conference play (8.33).
 
*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 is also tied for the team lead with 35.0 blocks this season (2s/33a), with junior Emerson Flornes (4s/31a). They are followed closely by freshman Claire Deller who has 33.0 blocks (2s/31a).
 
*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) hail 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.