MATCH INFORMATION
MATCH #10: Cornell vs. Columbia
MATCH TIME: Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017; 2:00 p.m.
MATCH SITE: Newman Arena (Ithaca, N.Y.)
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 51-13
LAST MEETING: Cornell won, 3-1; Oct. 22, 2016 (Ithaca, N.Y.)
2017 RECORDS: Cornell (4-5, 0-0 Ivy); Columbia (5-4, 0-0 Ivy)
LIVE STATS: http://www.sidearmstats.com/cornell/wvball/
LIVE VIDEO: www.IvyLeague.TV  
 
THE MATCHUP: The Big Red volleyball team opens the 32nd season of Ivy League play when it welcomes Columbia to Newman Arena on Saturday, Sept. 23 at 2 p.m. The game is the conference opener for both teams. Cornell enters the match with a records of 4-5 overall, while the Lions come in at 5-4.
 
FREE KIDS CLINIC: ITHACA, N.Y. – Members of the Big Red volleyball team and its staff will hold a free youth clinic immediately following the game vs. the Lions. Admission is free to the public and the clinic is open to boys and girls, grades K-8. To register, please send the name and age of the participant to camps@cornell.edu. 
               
THE SERIES VS. COLUMBIA: The Big Red and the Lions have played 64 times dating back to 1977, with Cornell holding a dominating 51-13 record in the all-time series. The Big Red halted a four-match losing streak against the Lions during the 2013 season with a series sweep and the teams have split the series in each of the past three years.
 
LAST TIME VS. THE LIONS: The Big Red started the second half of Ivy League play with a commanding 3-1 win over Columbia at Newman Arena on Oct. 22, 2016. Cornell won the first two sets, 25-18 and 25-21, before the Lions earned a hard fought 29-27 win in the third. Columbia's comeback was short-lived, however, as the Big Red dominated the fourth set, 25-15, to win the match. Cornell (9-9, 3-5 Ivy) was led by juniors Kit McCarty and Emily Wemhoff with 16 and 12 kills, respectively. Wemhoff also posted a team-best .310 hitting percentage (12-3-29), but McCarty was right behind at .306 (16-5-36). Senior Macey Wilson chipped in six kills, hitting .250 (6-1-20) and finished with nine total blocks (eight assists, one solo) to move into sixth place overall in Cornell history in career total blocks (337). Senior setter Alyssa Phelps finished with 41 assists 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 to reach the 3,000-assist plateau.  Phelps also added nine digs, four block assists and four kills (4-1-10; .300) to the Big Red cause. Defensively, libero Kiley McPeek had 16 digs, while defensive specialist Shae Bauchens added 11. Columbia (10-8, 5-3 Ivy) was led by Chichi Ikwuazom with 12 kills and a .348 hitting percentage (12-4-23), while Anja Malesevic had 11. Ikwuazom also finished with five block assists in front of libero Cassie Wes with a match-high 23 digs. As a team, the Lions hit just .094 (40-27-138), and recorded seven service errors with no aces in the match.
 
SCOUTING COLUMBIA: The Lions had a three-match winning streak halted by LIU Brooklyn in the final game of the Big Apple Battle, but still wrapped up non-conference play with a winning record of 5-4. The team is led by Chichi Ikwuazom's .411 hitting percentage. The reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year, she is also second on the team, behind Lucia Del Valle (2.64 kills per game), with 2.42 kills per game and leads the squad with 1.03 blocks per set. The Lions are an extremely tough serving team, ranking third in the nation in aces per set (2.09), with Grace Campbell ranked seventh in the county with 0.59 aces per set. Defensively, Katie Wood leads the team with 3.71 digs per set, while Campbell and Audrey Cheng average 8.22 and 6.35 assists per set, respectively.
 
THE HEAD COACH: Trudy Vande Berg is in her third season as The Wendy Schaenen '79 Head Coach Of Volleyball at Cornell (22-35, .386) ... 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.
 
ALL TOURNAMENT TEAM:
* Through the first two tournaments of the season, Kiley McPeek picked up a pair of all-tournament selections (JMU's Tropical Smoothie Invitational; Big Red Invitational).
* Emily Wemhoff was named to the Big Red Invitational All-Tournament team. 
* Kit McCarty and Kara Rogers were named to the Colgate Invitational All-Tournament Team.
 
NCAA TEAM RANKINGS: As a team, Cornell entered the week ranked …
* 2nd – Attacks per Set (42.15)
* 12th – Digs per Set (17.94)
* 68th – Assists per Set (12.73)
* 77th – Kills per Set (13.45)
* 110th – Blocks per Set (2.18)
 
NCAA INDIVIDUAL RANKINGS: Big Red players entered the week ranked …
* 23rd – Digs per Set (Kiley McPeek – 5.42)
* 24th – Aces per Set (Kiley McPeek – 0.52)
* 50th – Attacks per Set (Emily Wemhoff – 11.18)
* 56th – Blocks per Set (Jenna Phelps – 1.30)
 
DIGS A LOT: Kiley McPeek leads the conference with 5.42 digs per set. That mark is the highest by a Cornell player since Natasha Rowland averaged 5.67 digs during the 2014 season.
 
THE SWITCH: Two of Cornell's biggest contributors this season – Kiley McPeek and Chelsa Sincox – are playing positions that are significantly different than when they arrived on East Hill. McPeek joined the Big Red as an outside hitter and moved into the Libero role midway through the 2016 season. Sincox has spent the past three seasons as one of the team's top defensive specialists, before becoming one of the team's primary setters in the 2017 campaign.
 
GRINDING OUT A WIN: The Big Red is 3-2 in matches that go more than three sets. Cornell is just 1-3 in three-set matches.
 
DID YOU KNOW?:
* 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 … During the summer of 2016, she did an internship in Istanbul, Turkey and was in the country during an 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 graduated from 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.
 
BIG RED INVITATIONAL: Cornell came out of the Big Red Invitational with two wins for the first time since 2007, and just missed out on earning its first tournament title since 2005, as St. John's took the crown by tiebreaker (set winning percentage). 
 
RECAPPING 2016: Coming off its best performance since 2008, Cornell finished the 2016 season with a 12-12 record overall, posting six more victories than it did the year prior, the best single-season turnaround since the 2003 team went 21-4 following a 14-12 performance in 2002. With its record of 6-8 in the Ivy League, the Big Red finished fifth in the conference standings for its highest finish since the 2008 team placed third.
 
UP NEXT: The Big Red hits the road next weekend, traveling to Harvard on Friday, Sept. 29 and Dartmouth on Saturday, Sept. 30. Cornell split its meetings with the Crimson and the Big Green a year ago, but still holds significant leads in both series, posting a 37-27 advantage all-time against Harvard and a record of 41-16 all-time vs. Dartmouth.