PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team will close out the 2022 season with a pair of Ivy League matches this weekend. The Quakers are in a New York state of mind as they head to Cornell for a Friday night match before moving across the state to face Columbia Saturday evening in the Big Apple.
 
MATCH 23 – PENN at CORNELL
Friday, Nov. 11 | 7 p.m.
Watch on ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats
 
MATCH 24 – PENN at COLUMBIA
Saturday, Nov. 12 | 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 Cornell
The Quakers knocked off the Big Red earlier this season at The Palestra, 3-2, taking the fourth set 25-23 and the fifth 15-12. Prior to that, Cornell had won four of the last five and seven of the last 10 meetings. These teams split a year ago, the home team winning each time.
 
The Series with Columbia
The Lions came to The Palestra in October and emerged with a 3-1 win. This, after Penn swept Columbia last season including a 3-1 win in New York City. The teams split six meetings before that, from 2017-19.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn has been eliminated from participating in the inaugural Ivy League Volleyball Tournament, which will take place November 18-20 and be hosted by the regular-season champion.
 
*That said, the Quakers certainly showed how far they've come in recent weeks when they took on the iron of the league last weekend and extended then-Ivy leader Yale and defending champion Brown to five sets each.
 
*Senior Autumn Leak continues to impress. She was the only Penn player to reach double figures in kills in both matches last weekend, with a season-high 18 against Yale and 11 versus Brown. Overall, the second-team All-Ivy pick from a year ago has reached double digits in kills in each of the Quakers' last five matches, eight times in 12 Ivy matches, and 11 times overall in 2022.
 
*Sophomore Ella Green had a combined 20 kills last weekend, with eight against Yale and 12 against Brown.
 
*Senior Madeline McGregor had five kills in the Yale loss—she also had a career-high 18 digs—but followed up with a team-leading 13 Saturday against the Bears.
 
*Entering this final weekend, Leak has moved atop the team with 184 kills, followed closely by McGregor (178) and Green (177); when you look at kills/set it goes Leak (2.92), Green (2.49), McGregor (2.17).
 
*Senior Elizabeth Ford has 14 kills last weekend, moving her up to 63 this season; however, she remains Penn's most opportunistic hitter with a .336 hitting percentage. Ford also has 21.0 blocks (3s/18a).
 
*Freshman Abigail Reid, Penn's libero, remains second among Ivy Leaguers in overall digs per set (4.52) and digs per set in Ivy matches (4.38); she is behind Princeton's Cameron Dames (4.68) overall and barely behind Yale's Maile Somera (4.39) in Ivy play.
 
*Reid's 4.52 overall digs-per-set average is third among freshmen nationally—behind Valparaiso's Emma Hickey (5.65) and UC Irvine's Campbell Jensen (4.63)—and 62nd overall.
 
*Reid has topped all players in digs in 17 of Penn's 22 matches this season including 10 of its 12 Ivy matches.
 
*Freshman Anna Shohfi was back at the setter spot last weekend and had 38 assists in both matches; she's up to 443 for the season (8.01 a/s) including 301 in Ivy play (8.14 a/s).
 
*Reid also leads Penn with 21 service aces, 10 of them in Ivy play. She is followed by McGregor (16), junior Madison Risch (11), and Shohfi (10). Don't be surprised to see juniors Julia Bradshaw and Tatum DeMann and sophomore Kat Alexander brought on to serve through Penn's rotations.
 
*Alexander, by the way, had 11 digs last Saturday vs. Brown, her fifth time reaching double figures in that column this season with three of them coming in Ivy play.
 
*Junior Emerson Flornes leads the net defense with 45.0 blocks (5s/40a) after totaling nine block assists last weekend against Yale and Brown. She is followed by McGregor with 40.0 blocks (2s/38a) and freshman Claire Deller with 33.0 blocks (2s/31a).
 
*Only two players have started all 22 matches to date: McGregor and Reid.
 
*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'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.