MATCH INFORMATION
MATCH #19: Cornell at Yale
MATCH TIME: Friday, Oct. 28, 2016; 7:00 p.m.
MATCH SITE: Lee Amphitheater (New Haven, Conn.)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 39-26
LAST MEETING: Yale won, 3-1; Oct. 1, 2016
2016 RECORDS: Cornell (9-9, 3-5 Ivy); Yale (13-4, 6-2 Ivy)
LIVE STATS: http://www.yalebulldogs.com/sports/w-volley/2016-17/boxscores/20161028_38i7.xml  
LIVE VIDEO: http://www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell   
 
MATCH #20: Cornell at Brown
MATCH TIME: Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016; 5:00 p.m.
MATCH SITE: Pizzitola Sports Center (Providence, N.H.)
SERIES RECORD: Yale leads, 41-25
LAST MEETING: Brown won, 3-2; Sept. 30, 2016
* 2016 RECORDS: Cornell (9-9, 3-5 Ivy); Brown (4-14, 2-6 Ivy)
LIVE STATS: http://brownbears.com/sports/w-volley/2016-17/boxscores/20161029_eelc.xml
LIVE VIDEO: http://www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell  
 
THE MATCHUP: The Big Red volleyball team will seek its first 10-win season this weekend when it travels to Yale and Brown on Friday, Oct. 28 and Saturday, Oct. 29, respectively. Cornell has won three of its last four matches, including a 3-1 victory over Columbia last weekend. The Bulldogs are winners of five of their last six and sit in second place in the Ivy League standings, while the Bears have lost three consecutive matches heading into a Friday night contest vs. Columbia. Both contests will be streamed live on the Ivy League Digital Network.
 
THE SERIES VS. YALE: Cornell and Yale first met in 1976, a 2-0 Bulldog victory. Yale went on to win the next four contests before the Big Red earned its first win in the series during the 1981 campaign. The Bulldogs have won the past 17 meetings, taking the lead in the all-time series, 41-25.
 
LAST TIME VS. THE BULLDOGS: Junior Kit McCarty had a career-high 18 kills and senior Alyssa Phelps doled out a season-best 49 assists, but the volleyball team came up short on a pair of close sets late to suffer a 3-1 loss to Yale on at Newman Arena. Games scores were 25-19, 19-25, 25-23, 26-24. Cornell mixed and matched its lineup, using a total of 14 players on the night and hitting .274. Four hitters posted at least nine kills and hit .400 or better on the night individually. Freshman Jenna Phelps had a career-high 13 kills, and senior Macey Wilson had Emily Wemhoff nine kills apiece. Yale got 15 kills from Brittani Steinberg, and Kelsey Crawford had 10 digs and 10 assists.
 
SCOUTING YALE: The Bulldogs have won five of its last six matches to improve to 13-4 overall (6-2 Ivy). The team sits near to the top of the Ivy League in every statistical category, leading the conference in opponent hitting percentage and service aces, while ranking third overall in hitting percentage, kills and assists. Yale has four players – Brittani Steinberg (3.04), Kelley Wirth (2.67), Tristin Kott (2.08) and Kaitlyn Gibbons (2.00) – averaging more than two kills per set. Of the quartet, Knott leads the group with an impressive .280 hitting percentage. Freshman Franny Arnatou and junior Kelsey Crawford split the setting duties, averaging 7.15 and 4.21 assists per game, respectively, while Kate Swanson (fourth – 4.44) and Steinberg (eighth – 3.32) both rank in the top 10 of the Ivy League for digs per set.  
 
THE SERIES VS. BROWN: Cornell's series with Brown began in the 1976 season and the Big Red has dominated from the beginning, winning the first seven meetings before falling to the Bears for the first time in 1984. Cornell owns a 39-26 record in the all-time series, winning 19 of the last 32 meetings.
 
LAST TIME VS. THE BEARS: Maddy Sroufe and Kit McCarty combined for 35 kills, but the Cornell couldn't close the door on a Brown rally in a 3-2 loss at Newman Arena. Sroufe had a match-high 18 kills and McCarty had 17 for an offense that hit .275 as a group, but it was a balanced Brown attack that allowed the road team to squeak out the win. Payton Smith led the way with 13 kills on .619 hitting and both Makena Ehlert (11 kills) and Shirin Tooloee (10 kills) also hit for double figures. Melissa Cairo had 24 digs to lead both teams.
 
SCOUTING BROWN: The Bears enter the weekend with a 4-14 record (2-6) after dropping three consecutive Ivy League contests. The team is hitting just .169 and averaging 11.07 kills per set, marks that rank seventh and eighth, respectively, in the Ivy League. Freshman Makena Ehlert leads the team with 2.10 kills per set, while senior middle blocker Payton Smith is averaging 2.09 per set. Smith also has a team-high .236 hitting percentage. Defensively, junior libero Melissa Cairo has been a bright spot, ranking second in the conference with 4.66 digs per set.
 
THE HEAD COACH: Trudy Vande Berg is in her second season as The Wendy Schaenen '79 Head Coach Of Volleyball at Cornell (15-27, .357) ... 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.
 
PLAYER OF THE WEEK: After her 41-assist performance in a 3-1 victory over Columbia, Alyssa Phelps earned her first Ivy League honor, being named Player of the Week. She becomes the Big Red's first Ivy League Player of the Week award winner since Breanna Wong on Sept. 17, 2013.
 
DOUBLE-DIGIT WINS: Cornell needs just one victory in its last six games to reach double-digit victories for the first time since the 2008 campaign.
 
NON-CONFERENCE SUCCESS: With its 3-2 win over Binghamton, Cornell wrapped up its non-conference schedule with a 6-4 record, amassing the most non-conference wins in a season since 2006 (7) ... It also gave the Big Red its first winning record out of conference since the 2005 squad went 7-4 in non-league play.
 
FINISHING STRONG: Under second-year head coach Trudy Vande Berg, Cornell is 7-5 in matches that go five sets.
 
HEAVY HITTERS: The Big Red enters the week with a .220 hitting percentage, a mark that would be the seventh best in school history if the season ended today.
 
CLOSE LOSSES: Cornell has lost 20 sets in Ivy League play, more than a third of which (seven) have been by two points.
 
NCAA RANKINGS: Entering the week, Carla Sganderlla's .42 service aces per set ranks 31st in the nation.
 
IN THE IVY RANKINGS: Several Cornell players are raked in the top 10 of various Ivy League statistical categories, including:
* Macey Wilson – seventh in hitting percentage (.315)
* Kit McCarty – eighth in hitting percentage (.303)
* Jenna Phelps – ninth in hitting percentage (.283)
* Carla Sganderlla – sixth in kills per set (2.84)
* Kit McCarty – ninth in kills per set (2.78)
* Alyssa Phelps – fourth in assists per set (8.16)
* Carla Sganderlla – second in service aces per set (0.43)
* Macey Wilson – third in blocks (1.06)
* Lily Barber – ninth in digs per set (3.23)
 
TEAM IVY RANKINGS: As a team, Cornell ranks in the top half of the Ivy League rankings in:
* Assists (second – 12.19)
* Kills (second – 12.82)
* Hitting percentage (second – .220)
* Blocks (fourth – 2.03) 
* Service aces (fourth – 1.32)
 
SETTING UP: Senior Alyssa Phelps registered 41 assists vs. Columbia on Oct. 22 to move into second place all-time in Cornell history, surpassing Vanessa Richlin '00. Now with 2,940 career assists, she is a mere 60 helpers away from becoming just the second player in Big Red history, and 20th in the Ivy League, to reach the 3,000-assist plateau.  
 
BIG BLOCKER: Senior Macey Wilson ranks 15th in Cornell history for career solo blocks (45), needing just two more to move past Traci Mizoguchi '96 in 14th place. She is also fourth in block assists (292) and sixth in total blocks (337), needing two and seven, 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.
* Jada Stackhouse is a distant cousin of 18-year NBA veteran Jerry Stackhouse.
 
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 will play its final home games of the season, and honor the team's two seniors – Alyssa Phelps and Macey Wilson – when it welcomes Harvard and Dartmouth to Newman Arena on Friday, Nov. 4 and Saturday, Nov. 5, respectively.