PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team concludes a stretch of five straight road matches this weekend. The Quakers will be in a New York state of mind, traveling to Ithaca to take on Ivy League leader Cornell on Friday before venturing across the Empire State to take on the Ancient Eight's cellar dweller, Columbia, on Saturday.
 
Penn continues to hunt a spot in the four-team Ivy League Tournament and remains mathematically alive, two games behind fourth-place Yale with four still left to play in the regular season.
 
Game 21 – PENN (10-10, 4-6 Ivy League) at CORNELL (13-7, 8-2)
Friday, Nov. 7 | 7 p.m. | Ithaca, N.Y.
Watch Live on ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats
 
Game 22 – PENN at COLUMBIA (2-18, 0-10)
Saturday, Nov. 8 | 6 p.m. | New York City
Watch Live 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
Penn emphatically pinned the Big Red with their first Ivy League loss of the season on October 18, sweeping them at The Palestra. That ended a streak of five straight Cornell wins in the series, including season sweeps each of the last two years after the teams split the season series in both 2021 and 2022. The Quakers go into Friday looking for their first win in Ithaca since 2015.
 
The Series with Columbia
The Quakers have won five in a row over the Lions, the last four of them coming in sweep fashion including a 3-0 decision on October 17 at The Palestra. Columbia swept the season series in 2022, both by 3-1 scores, after Penn won both meetings in 2021 (3-1 in NYC, 3-0 in Philly).
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn is coming off one of the biggest wins in the program's recent history, erasing a 2-1 deficit in sets to beat Yale last Saturday in New Haven, 3-2 (25-22, 19-25, 19-25, 25-19, 15-11). The Bulldogs entered that match 24-1 at home in Ivy play since 2022, with 17 of those wins coming via sweep and just one going to five sets. It was the Quakers' first win over Yale since 2017 and their first in New Haven since they beat the Bulldogs in an Ivy League playoff all the way back in 2010.
 
*It was also Penn's first five-set win this season; the Quakers were 0-4 in five-setters prior to that (the losses coming to Coppin State, Temple, Brown, and Dartmouth).
 
*Penn won three straight matches by 3-0 scores from September 17-20 (over NJIT, Delaware and Saint Peter's). You have to go all the way back to the 2009 season to find the last time the Quakers won three straight matches by sweep (October 23-30 against Cornell, Columbia and Yale).
 
*In fact, eight of Penn's 10 wins this season have come via the sweep with the only exceptions coming on October 10 at Harvard (a 3-1 victory) and last Saturday's thriller at Yale.
 
*Relevant to this weekend: when Penn beat Columbia and then Cornell by matching 3-0 scores on October 17-18 at The Palestra, it marked the first time the Quakers swept an Ivy weekend 6-0 in sets since the final weekend of the 2021 season—coincidentally, against the (in order) Big Red and Lions!
 
*Penn enters the weekend fifth nationally in digs per set (17.51), seventh in attacks per set (38.12), 16th in assists per set (13.05), and 23rd in kills per set (13.79). Individually, freshman Addison Pollock is 20th nationally (and fifth among first-year players) in digs per set (4.90).
 
*Among Ivy teams, Penn is tops in all of the above categories; individually, Pollock leads the league in digs per set and junior Zada Sanger is third in kills per set (3.30) behind only Cornell's Eliza Konvicka (3.94) and Yale's Ava Poinsett (3.42).
 
*Speaking of Sanger, she was named Ivy League Player of the Week on September 22 after earning Tournament MVP honors at the Delaware Invitational. Her classmate, Bella Rittenberg, was named all-tournament at Delaware after she put down 12 kills (hitting .474) and added two digs and two assists in Penn's win over the host Blue Hens.

*Seven women have played in at least 31 of Penn's 38 sets so far in Ivy League play. Of that group, four are sophomores and two are freshmen; the only upperclass player on the list is Sanger.
 
*Penn is in its first season under head coach Tyler Hagstrom. His hiring was late, coming just before the preseason on July 16 after previous head coach Meredith Schamun left the Quakers to become the associate head coach at the University of Illinois.
 
*Hagstrom came to Penn after a successful five-year run at Bucknell that included the Bison going 21-5 last year and setting a program record with 13 wins in Patriot League play. Despite only coaching five seasons at Bucknell, Hagstrom left as the program's all-time leader in win percentage (59-48, .551).
 
*In addition to putting down 190 kills so far this season—including 20 last weekend at Brown (9) and Yale (11)—sophomore Jenna Garner also has 11 double-figure dig performances and five kill/dig double-doubles this season, the most recent coming last Saturday (11K/11D at Yale). She finished one kill shy of another double-double vs. Princeton (9K/13D) and at Brown (9K/11D), one dig shy at home vs. Brown (12K/9D), and two digs shy at Harvard (11K/8D). She followed up the Harvard performance with a career-high 21 digs the next night at Dartmouth. Garner also is second on the team with 18 service aces after serving up four last Saturday at Yale.
 
*Sanger leads the team with 231 kills and had reached double digits in that category in 12 straight matches (3.59 k/s in that span) before finishing just shy with nine in Penn's sweep of Ivy leader Cornell on October 18. Out of 19 appearances this season, Sanger has 15 double-digit kill games and two others with nine.
 
*Sophomore Adell Murray is hitting .329 for the season, but that number goes up to .348 if you take out her performance in the season opener against Colorado (119K-19E-287A since then). Murray—who hit .387 last weekend (15K-3E-31A) after missing two matches due to injury—has hit .343 in Penn's Ivy League matches (57K-8E-143A) and also leads the team with 41.0 blocks overall (7s/34a) and 26.0 in Ivy play (3s/23a).
 
*Another sophomore, Ellie Siskin, had a monster weekend at Brown and Yale, with 14 kills against the Bears and 17 in the win over the Bulldogs—her career high in an Ivy match and one shy of her overall match best. She has filled the box score this season with a combined 192 kills, 92 digs, 27 block assists, and a team-leading 23 service aces (including three last Saturday at Yale).
 
*Freshman Haley Kerstetter has been an efficient offensive weapon since the start of Ivy play, hitting .411 (62K-11E-124A) in Penn's ten conference matches. She had six kills without an error on 11 attacks last Saturday at Yale, seven kills without an error on nine attacks on October 17 vs. Columbia, and 12 kills on 18 attacks without an error last month against Brown. The freshman also has 36.0 blocks (9s/27a), second on the team behind Murray—her nine block solos lead the Quakers—and 13 service aces.
 
*Pollock, meanwhile, had 28 digs in Penn's five-setter at Dartmouth on October 11, a season/career high and her ninth time this season with more than 20. She is also third on the team in service aces (17) and was the Ivy League Rookie of the Week the week of September 15.
 
*Penn has had two setters rotate through much of the season. The sophomore, Moore, has seen more and more of the action as the season has progressed and has 567 assists so far this season—including 50 in last Saturday's five-setter at Yale, two shy of her career high—while senior Anna Shohfi has 230.
 
*Penn went 1-2 at the Charm City Classic, falling at Coppin State on Friday (3-2) and then splitting matches with Lafayette (a 3-0 win) and Towson (a 3-1 loss) on Saturday. Towson's win over Penn was its ninth in a row this season.
 
*Penn started the 2025 season on the right foot, going 2-1 at the Anteater Classic. The Quakers fell to Colorado to start the tournament, 3-0, but rebounded to sweep Fresno State and host UC Irvine.
 
*Garner and Murray were named to the Anteater Classic all-tournament team. Garner had 26 kills, hit .303 on the weekend, and added 34 digs with a pair of kills/digs double-doubles (11/18 vs. Fresno, 14/12 vs. UC Irvine). Murray had 24 kills and hit .281 on the weekend (21K-4E-43A, .395 in the two wins).
 
*Sanger also had a standout weekend offensively in her home state, finishing the three matches with a team-high 30 kills. That included a five-set run across the Fresno State and Irvine matches where Sanger put down 20 kills without an error.
 
*The trip to Irvine served as a homecoming for seven Penn players who hail from the Golden State: seniors Claire Deller (Del Mar) and Jalen Tennyson (Los Angeles); juniors Rittenberg (Fallbrook) and Sanger (Berkeley); sophomores Garner (Pasadena) and Hailey Hilsabeck (Lafayette); and freshman Taylor Roloff (Alameda).
 
*Penn made a massive leap last season under Schamun, going 13-10 overall and finishing Ivy League play at 7-7. In both cases, the win totals more than tripled from the previous season when the Quakers finished 4-20 overall and 2-12 in Ivy play.
 
*Even better: almost the entire core returns. Penn returns 98.2 percent of its kills, 94.0 percent of its blocks, 93.0 percent of its digs, and 98.7 percent of its service aces. The Quakers return four players who had more than 100 kills last year and three others who had more than 50; five players who finished with at least 100 digs; and six players who ended the campaign with more than 20 blocks. Penn also returns its top two setters.
 
*In looking at last year's stats, there were 11 women who played in at least 62 of Penn's 88 sets. Only one of those players does not return—Kat Alexander, who graduated after playing in 66 sets. And yet the Quakers still remain relatively young: of the remaining 10, only Abigail Reid (67) and Anna Shohfi (63) are seniors.
 
*Some historic wins last season: Penn won at Princeton on September 27, 3-1, the Quakers' first win over the Tigers since 2015. (In that match, Penn dropped the first set but won the next three.) One week later, the Quakers downed Brown 3-0 for their first win over the Bears since 2019. Finally, the Quakers swept Harvard last season, the first time that's happened since 2016.
 
*Three returning players have earned All-Ivy recognition at some point during their career. Sanger and Murray received honorable mention All-Ivy recognition after last season, while Reid earned honorable mention recognition following her freshman season in 2022.
 
*Shohfi and junior Lauren Van Wie are this year's captains.
 
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