MATCH INFORMATION
MATCH #15: Cornell at Binghamton
MATCH TIME: Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2016; 7:00 p.m.
MATCH SITE: West Gym (Vestal, N.Y.)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 22-9-2
LAST MEETING: Cornell won, 3-1; Sept. 18, 2015
2016 RECORDS: Cornell (6-8, 1-4 Ivy); Binghamton (8-10, 2-3 America East)
LIVE STATS: http://www.sidearmstats.com/binghamton/wvball/
LIVE VIDEO: http://www.americaeast.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?catid=0&id=1727480&db_oem_id=14000

THE MATCHUP: The Big Red wraps up non-conference play this week when it travels to Binghamton on Tuesday, Oct. 11 to take on the Bearcats at 7 p.m. Cornell split a pair of games last weekend to improve to 6-8 overall, while Binghamton dropped a pair of conference games last weekend to slip to 8-10 overall. Live stats will be available at http://www.sidearmstats.com/binghamton/wvball/ and the match will be steamed live on America East TV.
 
NON-CONFERENCE SUCCESS: With its 2-1 showing at the Bucknell Invitational, Cornell improved to 5-4 on the year, amassing the most non-conference wins in a season since 2006 (7) ... With one non-conference games to play, the Big Red has also guaranteed its first .500 non-conference record since that 2006 squad went 7-7.  
 
THE SERIES VS. BINGHAMTON: Cornell has faced Binghamton 32 times, dominating the series at 22-9-2. The Bearcats have won five of the last eight meetings, but the Big Red won last season's outing, 3-1 … Head coach Trudy Vande Berg is 1-0 all-time vs. Binghamton.  
 
LAST TIME VS. THE BEARCATS: The Big Red opened the home portion of its 2015 schedule with a 3-1 victory over Binghamton in the opening round of the Cornell Invitational on Sept. 18 in Newman Arena. The Big Red won the first two sets, 25-23, 25-15, before dropping the third, 18-25. In the decisive fourth set, Cornell used a late surge to outscore the Bearcats down the stretch en route to the 25-23 victory. Cornell was led by Macey Wilson, who registered 15 kills and also hit a team-best .370 (15-5-27), to go along with five total blocks (one solo, four assists). Junior Alyssa Phelps also had a solid outing as she posted 16 assists, 12 kills, hit .276, registered six digs, and had two block assists. Freshman setter Lauren Donnelly split time with Phelps and finished with 23 assists and seven digs, while libero Chelsea Sincox had a match-high 27 digs. Binghamton was led by Megan Burgess's 10 kills, while Bianca Anderson hit a blistering .636 (8-1-11). Setter Saragh Ngo finished with 35 assists and 14 digs, while libero Bailey Walker had a team-high 17 digs.
 
SCOUTING BINGHAMTON: The Bearcats have lost their last two outings to slip to 8-10 overall and 2-3 in the America East. AS a team, Binghamton is averaging 11.3 kills per set and hitting just .182. Lauren Kornmann leads the squad in kills (2.93 kills per set), while Gaby Alicea (2.21) and Erin Shultz (2.31) are also averaging better than 2.00 kills per outing. Setter Sara Ngo is averaging 9.08 assists per set, while libero Baily Walker enters the game with an impressive 4.45 digs per set.
 
VS. THE AMERICA EAST: Cornell is 41-11-2 all-time vs. the current members of the America East, thanks mostly to a 22-9-2 record vs. in-state rival Binghamton. The Big Red also has a winning record vs. Albany (8-0), Hartford (6-1), New Hampshire (2-0) and Stony Brook (3-1), but has never faced UMBC or UMass-Lowell.
 
THE HEAD COACH: Trudy Vande Berg is in her second season as The Wendy Schaenen '79 Head Coach Of Volleyball at Cornell (12-26, .316) ... Vande Berg became the 11th head coach in Cornell volleyball history in March 2015 after spending three seasons as the Big Red's top assistant coach ... Prior to her time at Cornell, Vande Berg spent time as an assistant coach at North Florida, Duke, and Iowa State and as a volunteer assistant at Wisconsin. She also served as head coach of the Team Iowa Ice professional club in the Premier Volleyball League, where she guided the team to the championship in her second year at the helm.
 
HEAVY HITTERS: The Big Red enters the week with a .229 hitting percentage, a mark that would be the fifth best in school history if the season ended today.
 
CLOSE LOSSES: Cornell has lost 14 sets in Ivy League play, more than a third of which (five) have been by two points.
 
IN THE IVY RANKINGS: Several Cornell players are raked in the top 10 of various Ivy League statistical categories, including:
* Macey Wilson – sixth in hitting percentage (.331)
* Kit McCarty – seventh in hitting percentage (.313)
* Jenna Phelps – eighth in hitting percentage (.307)
* Kit McCarty – fourth in kills per set (2.87)
* Carla Sganderlla – seventh in kills per set (2.75)
* Alyssa Phelps – fifth in assists per set (7.81)
* Carla Sganderlla – first in service aces per set (0.50)
* Macey Wilson – fourth in blocks (1.00)
* Lily Barber – eighth in digs per set (3.23)
 
TEAM IVY RANKINGS: As a team, Cornell ranks in the top three of the Ivy League rankings in:
* Blocks (second – 2.04) 
* Assists (second – 12.28)
* Kills (second – 12.93)
* Hitting percentage (third – .229)
 
SETTING UP: Senior Alyssa Phelps is just the fourth player in Big Red history to surpass 2,500 assists in a career, sitting fourth overall with 2,766 helpers. She needs just 62 more to surpass Whitney Fair '06 in third place.
 
BIG BLOCKER: Senior Macey Wilson ranks 15th in Cornell history for career solo blocks (46), needing just one more to move past Traci Mizoguchi '96 in 14th place. She is also fourth in block assists (270) and seventh in total blocks (314), needing 23 and 17, respectively, to move up a notch.

ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM:  Juniors Kit McCarty and Emily Wemnoff were named to the Cornell Invitational All-Tournament … Junior Maddy Sroufe was named to the UMKC Kangaroo Klassic All-Tournament Team … McCarty and sophomore Carla Sganderlla were name to the Bucknell Invitational All-Tournament Team.  
 
DID YOU KNOW:
* Alyssa Phelps is a research assistant in the Ophir Integrative Neuroethology Lab at Cornell … Alyssa and Jenna Phelps are sisters.
* Kiley McPeek has 10 relatives that are Cornell alumni. Her father, Jeff '82, played sprint football for the Big Red, while her great uncle Richard Boerner was a member of the Cornell heavyweight varsity eight that won the IRA national championship in 1958 … This past summer, she did an internship in Istanbul, Turkey and was in the country during the attempted coup d'état.
* Kit McCarty is one of eight children – she has four brothers and three sisters.
* Zoe Lequeux is a French citizen.
* Carla Sganderlla can speak Portuguese ... Her brother attends Cornell.
* Kara Rogers lived in Germany for a year … Her sister is a member of the Yale swimming team.
* Maddy Sroufe's younger sister plays volleyball at VCU.
* This past summer, Chelsea Sincox worked for congressman Pete Olson … Last summer she interned at NASA.
 
SEASON OPENERS: With its win over Colgate on Sept. 3, Cornell improved to 29-14-1 all-time in season openers. Since 1995, the Big Red is an impressive 16-5 in the first match of the season ... Coach Vande Berg is a perfect 2-0 in season openers.
 
NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK: The Big Red added six freshmen – as Samanta Arenas, Lily Barber, Sophia Beaudoin, Jenna Phelps, Katie Randolph and Jada Stackhouse – to the roster for the 2016 season. The six student-athletes hail from six different states and the group consists of two middle blockers, two outside hitters, one setter, and one defensive specialist.
 
UP NEXT: The Big Red remains on the road next weekend as it wraps up the first half of Ivy League play at Dartmouth and Harvard on Friday, Oct. 14 and Saturday, Oct. 15, respectively.