MATCH INFORMATION
MATCH #11: Cornell vs. Brown
MATCH TIME: Friday, Sept. 30, 2016; 7:00 p.m.
MATCH SITE: Newman Arena (Ithaca, N.Y.)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 39-25
LAST MEETING: Cornell won, 3-2; Oct. 31, 2015
2016 RECORDS: Cornell (5-5, 0-1 Ivy); Brown (2-8, 0-1 Ivy)
LIVE STATS: http://www.sidearmstats.com/cornell/wvball/
LIVE VIDEO:  http://www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell
  
MATCH #12: Cornell vs. Yale
MATCH TIME: Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016; 5:00 p.m.
MATCH SITE: Newman Arena (Ithaca, N.Y.)
SERIES RECORD: Yale leads, 40-25
LAST MEETING: Yale won, 3-2; Oct. 30, 2015
* 2016 RECORDS: Cornell (5-5, 0-1 Ivy); Yale (8-2, 1-0 Ivy)
LIVE STATS: http://www.sidearmstats.com/cornell/wvball/
LIVE VIDEO:  http://www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell
 
* records prior to Friday's contests

THE MATCHUP: The Big Red volleyball team returns to action at Newman Arena for the first time since the team's opening weekend on Sept. 2-3, when it welcomes Brown and Yale to Newman Arena. Cornell will face the Bears on Friday, Sept. 30 at 7 p.m., before taking on the Bulldogs on Saturday, Oct. 1 at 5 p.m. Live stats will be available for both contests at http://www.sidearmstats.com/cornell/wvball/ and both matches can be seen live on the Ivy League Digital Network.
 
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 39-25 record in the all-time series, winning 19 of the last 31 meetings.
 
LAST TIME VS. THE BEARS: For the second night in a row, the Big Red took its opponent to five sets. But unlike the previous night's heartbreaking loss to Yale, Cornell earned the hard-fought 3-2 win over Brown in Newman Arena on Oct. 31, 2015. The Bears won the first set (25-23) but Cornell battled back to tie the match with a 25-22 decision in the second. Brown regained the lead with a 25-11 victory in the third, but Cornell won the fourth (25-22) and then finished strong with a 15-12 victory in the fifth. Carla Sganderlla had another career-night for the Big Red with a 22-kill, 18-dig effort. Maddy Sroufe (13) and Alex Basler (12) also finished in double-digits, while Kara Rogers (9-2-16) and Macey Wilson (7-1-21) combined to hit .351. Wilson also had a team-high six block assists. Defensively, Cornell had four players reach double-digit digs, led by Sganderlla and libero Natalie Danenhauer with 18 apiece. Defensive specialists Chelsea Sincox and Kiley McPeek finished with 14 and 13 digs, respectively.  Setter Alyssa Phelps registered 40 assists, while Lauren Donnelly posted 19. Brown was led by Sabrina Stillwell's 20 kills and impressive .319 hitting percentage. Shannon Frost also finished with 10 kills and a game-high 21 digs.
 
SCOUTING BROWN: The Bears enter the weekend with a 2-8 record after dropping its Ivy League opener to Yale, 3-0, in its last outing. Brown's two wind have come against Bryant (3-1) and Central Connecticut State (3-2). The team is hitting just .182 and averaging 11.05 kills per set, marks that rank seventh and eighth, respectively, in the Ivy League. Freshman Makena Ehlert leads the team with 2.48 kills per set, while sophomore Sabrina Stillwell is averaging 2.34 per set. Stillwell also has a team-high .233 hitting percentage. Defensively, junior libero Melissa Cairo has been a bright spot, ranking fourth in the conference with 3.91 digs per set.  
 
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 16 meetings, taking the lead in the all-time series, 40-25.
 
LAST TIME VS. THE BULLDOGS: Freshman Carla Sganderlla registered a career- and team season-high 20 kills, but it wasn't enough as Yale narrowly escaped Newman Arena with a 3-2 victory on Oct. 30, 2015. The entire match was a back-and-forth affair, with both teams answering each other's best efforts. After Cornell scratched out the three-point win (25-22) in a first set that saw six ties and two lead changes, Yale managed to take the lead in the match with a pair of 25-23 decisions. The third set was a particularly exciting one with 14 ties and six lead changes. The Big Red needed extra points in a 27-25 victory to force a fifth set, but the Bulldogs jumped out to a quick start in the final set and never looked back en route to the 15-8 win.  Cornell hit.176 for the game, with Sganderlla (.200), Alex Basler (7-1-24; .250), Kara Rogers (4-0-7; .571) and Emily Wemhoff (9-2-28; .250) all hitting above .200 percent. Setter Alyssa Phelps finished with a team season-high 50 assists, while libero Natalie Danenhauer posted a team season-high 28 digs. Defensive specialist Chelsea Sincox also finished with 23 digs, giving Cornell a pair of 20-dig players for the first time since the first match of the season (William & Mary on Sept. 5) Sganderlla posted her second consecutive double-double, chipping in 18 digs, while Kiley McPeek also finished with 10.  Yale was led by Brittani Steinberg's 18 kills and Jesse Ebner's efficient 11-1-21 performance to finish with a match-high .476 hitting percentage. Kaitlyn Gibbons also finished with 10 kills, hitting .300 on the evening (10-1-30). Despite Ebner and Gibbons performance, the Bulldogs hit just .168 as a team. Defensively, the visitors had three players finish with 20+ digs - Kate Swanson (25), Kelly Johnson (20), and Karlee Fuller (20). Johnson also posted 43 assists.
 
SCOUTING YALE: The Bulldogs are off to an 8-2 start, with their two losses coming to UConn and Rice.  Yale has won three straight, including its Ivy League opener at Brown last weekend, and of its eight wins, six have come in straight-set sweeps. The team sits near to the top of the Ivy League in every statistical category, leading the conference in service aces and ranking second overall in hitting percentage, opponent hitting percentage, and digs. Yale has four players – Brittani Steinberg (2.85), Kelley Wirth (2.79), Kaitlyn Gibbons (2.56) and Tristin Kott (2.227) – averaging more than two kills per set. Of the quartet, Knott leads the group with an impressive .300 hitting percentage. Freshman Franny Arnatou and junior Kelsey Crawford split the setting duties, averaging 6.87 and 5.71 assists per game, respectively, while Kate Swanson (third – 4.24) and Steinberg (fifth – 3.61) both rank in the top 10 of the Ivy League for 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 (11-23, .323) ... 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.
 
NCAA RANKINGS: Entering the week, Carla Sganderlla's .45 service aces per set ranks 32nd 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 – fifth in hitting percentage (.317)
* Jenna Phelps – sixth in hitting percentage (.307)
* Kit McCarty – ninth in hitting percentage (.297)
* Carla Sganderlla – fourth in kills per set (3.13)
* Maddy Sroufe – eighth in kills per set (2.68)
* Kit McCarty – 10th in kills per set (2.65)
* Alyssa Phelps – fourth in assists per set (7.57)
* Carla Sganderlla – first in service aces per set (0.45)
* Jenna Phelps – second in blocks per set (1. 00)
* Lily Barber – sixth in digs per set (3.51)
 
TEAM IVY RANKINGS: As a team, Cornell ranks in the top three of the Ivy League rankings in:
* Blocs (first – 2.27)  
* Assists (second – 12.51)
* Kills (second – 13.14)
* Hitting percentage (third – .233)
 
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 2,624 helpers. She needs just 172 more to surpass Whitney Fair '06 in third place.
 
BIG BLOCKER: Senior Macey Wilson ranks 15th in Cornell history for career solo blocks (42), needing just five more to move past Traci Mizoguchi '96 in 14th place. She is also sixth in block assists (257) and seventh in total blocks (299), needing five and 32, respectively, to move up a notch.
 
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.  

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 Tea.  
 
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 at home next weekend, wrapping up a four-game home-stand when it welcomes Penn and Princeton on Friday Oct. 7 and Saturday, Oct. 8, respectively. The game vs. the Quakers will start a 7 p.m., while the game vs. the Tigers is slated for 5 p.m.