PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team has put the non-conference portion of its 2025 schedule in the rear-view mirror. It's all Ivy League play from here on out, starting Friday night when the Quakers host archrival Princeton at The Palestra.
 
Penn was picked fifth in the Ivy League's preseason media poll, which featured two voters from each of the schools. The Quakers received 58 voting points and finished the poll behind Yale (121 points including 9 first-place votes), Princeton (119/7), Brown (88) and Cornell (79).
 
Game 11 – PENN (6-4, 0-0 Ivy League) vs. PRINCETON (5-3, 0-0)
Friday, Sept. 26 | 7 p.m. | The Palestra
Watch Live on ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats | Program (PDF)
 
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
In a rivalry that dates to 1975, the Tigers have dominated in recent years. Last year, Penn earned a 3-1 win at Old Nassau, the Quakers' first victory over Princeton since 2015. A day later, the Tigers came back with a 3-1 win here in Philadelphia in a match that was played in Rockwell Gym. Penn's last home win came in 2013, a 3-0 sweep.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn won three matches last week, all of them by 3-0 scores (over NJIT, Delaware and Saint Peter's), before falling 3-2 to Temple on Tuesday at The Palestra. 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, all six of Penn's wins this season have come via the sweep.
 
*Junior Zada Sanger was named Ivy League Player of the Week on Monday after totaling 26 kills and a .523 hitting percentage across two matches at the University of Delaware Invitational last weekend. That earned her Tournament MVP honors. Sanger followed that up with a team-high 18 kills against the Owls, and she leads Penn and is second among Ivy League players averaging 3.44 kills per set.
 
*Another junior, Bella Rittenberg, was named all-tournament at Delaware after she put down 12 kills (hitting .474) and added two digs and two assists in the win over the host Blue Hens on Friday.

*Penn enters the weekend leading the nation in digs per set (18.57), sixth in assists per set (13.74), and seventh in kills per set (14.63). Individually, freshman Addison Pollock is sixth nationally (third among first-year players) in digs per set (5.31).

*Penn entered the week leading the Ivy League in kills per set (15.00), assists per set (14.10) and digs per set (18.60) and is second in hitting percentage (.265) behind only Friday's opponent, Princeton (.271).
 
*Of the ten women who have played at least half of Penn's 35 sets so far this season, just one is a senior—Anna Shohfi, who has played in 20 sets. Perhaps more impressively, four of them are sophomores and two are freshmen.
 
*Penn is in its first season under head coach Tyler Hagstrom. He is still just getting to know his players, as he was hired 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).

*It should be noted that, before taking over as head coach at Bucknell, Hagstrom spent four years as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Princeton.
 
*In addition to putting down 106 kills so far this season—including a career-high 19 against Lafayette on September 13—sophomore Jenna Garner also has six double-figure dig performances and four kill/dig double-doubles this season, the most recent coming on Tuesday (13K/14D vs. Temple).
 
*Sanger leads the team with 110 kills and has reached double digits in that category in six straight matches (3.48 k/s in that span) and seven times overall this season. She has hit .347 over Penn's last five matches (64K-12E-150A).
 
*Sophomore Adell Murray is hitting .316 for the season, but that number goes up to .354 if you take out her performance in the season opener against Colorado (62K-11E-144A since then).
 
*Another sophomore, Ellie Siskin, has consistently filled the box score this season. She has 86 kills, 52 digs and 10 block assists, and leads the Quakers with nine service aces.

*Freshman Haley Kerstetter had seven kills last Saturday vs. Saint Peter's and hit .357; she also led the Quakers' net defense with five blocks (1s/4a) and leads the team in that category for the season (16.0, just ahead of Murray's 15.0 and Sanger's 14.0).
 
*Pollock, meanwhile, matched her season/career high with 25 digs Tuesday night against Temple, her sixth time this season with more than 20. She is also second behind Siskin in service aces (8) and was the Ivy League Rookie of the Week the week of September 15.
 
*Sophomore setter Emery Moore has 267 assists so far this season, an 8.34 per-set average, while the senior Shohfi has 127 (6.35 a/s).
 
*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.
 
*Two freshmen stood out in their first collegiate action. Up front, Kerstetter led Penn with seven blocks (4s/3a) and put down 16 kills, hitting .308. On the back line, libero Pollock led the Quakers with 50 digs.
 
*Still another sophomore, Siskin, was a regular in the rotation and finished the three matches with 20 kills, 20 digs, and a team-high six service aces.
 
*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.
 
*Penn players earned the Ivy League Rookie of the Week honor three times last season; Murray was the Ivy League Rookie of the Week in Week 1 and setter Moore was the recipient on consecutive weeks (September 23 and 30).
 
*Sanger has been Penn's top offensive player since she arrived on campus, leading Penn in kills both last year (260, 3.17 per set) and as a freshman (265). She hit .232 last season, up from .159 her freshman year, and tied for the team lead last year with eight block solos to go with 27 block assists.
 
*Another junior, Bella Rittenberg, had 215 kills last season (2.53 per set) and enters the campaign with 364 in her career. Rittenberg—who hit .296 last year—also had 116 digs and 31 block assists last year, served up 16 aces, and had three double-doubles.
 
*Murray ended her freshman season with 209 kills (2.38 per set), a solid .341 hitting percentage, and a team-leading 54 blocks (6s/48a).
 
*Her classmate, Moore, quickly established herself as the team's setter last year and finished the campaign with 772 assists (8.77 per set). She also led the Quakers with 206 digs and finished with 26 blocks (4s/22a) and 61 kills (.242 hitting percentage).
 
*Of note, Murray and Moore were the only two players last season to play in all 88 sets for the Quakers. After that, Rittenberg played in 85, Sanger played in 82, and Siskin played in 80.
 
*Siskin ended last season with 167 kills (2.09 per set), 172 digs and 23 blocks (3s/20a). She also led the Quakers with 27 service aces and had three kills/digs double-doubles in her freshman campaign.
 
*Two other players hit the 20-ace mark last year, sophomore Jenniya Lane (22) and junior Elsa McDermott (20). Lane also finished the season with 49 blocks (8s/41a), good for second on the team, while McDermott had 83 digs.
 
*Reid was second on the team with 174 digs last season after leading the team in that category her freshman (414) and sophomore (246) seasons and enters this season needing 166 to reach 1,000.
 
*Garner was a back-line stalwart last year with 134 digs, 68 kills and 16 aces.
 
*Shohfi and junior Lauren Van Wie are this year's captains.
 
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