Volleyball Closes Out Season With No. 8 Minnesota & No. 5 Wisconsin

Friday, November 29

New Brunswick, NJ

7:00 PM

Rutgers University

Minnesota

Stasa Miljevic Jasmine Stackhouse Kayrsa Swackenberg

Photo by: Ben Solomon/Rutgers Athletics

Volleyball Closes Out Season With No. 8 Minnesota & No. 5 Wisconsin

Nov 26 | Women's Volleyball

Match Notes Watch - Minnesota Live Stats - Minnesota Watch - Wisconsin Live Stats - Wisconsin Flip Card Parking

Scarlet Knights Host Golden Gophers on Friday and Badgers on Saturday

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - The Rutgers women's volleyball closes out the 2019 season this weekend against a pair of top 10 Big Ten opponents. The Scarlet Knights welcome No. 8 Minnesota on Friday and No. 5 Wisconsin on Saturday with both matches serving up action at 7 p.m. at the College Avenue Gym.

PROMOTIONS

Rutgers will honors its three seniors - Stasa Miljevic, Jasmine Stackhouse and Karysa Swackenberg on Senior Knight before Saturday's game with the Badgers.

HEAD-TO-HEAD

ABOUT RUTGERS

Rutgers is back to the College Avenue Gym for its final three matches of the 2019 campaign featuring the gauntlet of Big Ten opponents in No. 8 Penn State, No. 7 Minnesota and No. 5 Wisconsin.
Last Sunday, the Scarlet Knights began the homestand with a loss to No. 8 Penn State in three sets. Sophomores Tali Marmen and Anastasiia Maksimova led the Scarlet Knight offense with six kills apiece, while on defense Maksimova added five digs and Marmen recorded a pair of block assists. Sophomore Inna Balyko directed the offense with 18 assists along a pair of service aces. Balyko also had seven digs on the defense, with senior libero Karysa Swackenberg collecting a game-high 12 digs.
While it will be the first and only meeting with Wisconsin, Rutgers faced Minnesota back on Oct. 5 falling 3-1 and collecting a set win over a top 10 opponent for the first time since 2014. Four Scarlet Knights logged double digit kills with Jasmine Stackhouse leading the way with 13, Beka Kojadinovic adding 12 and Anastasiia Maksimova and Merle Wedit each recording 11 apiece. Weidt also had a match-high eight blocks, including two solo stops, while Karysa Swackenberg claimed a match-high 17 digs. Inna Balyko also had her first double-double of the season with 44 assists and 10 digs.
Balyko has put together five double-doubles (assists/digs) in the last nine outings and has 11 on the season. Stringing together five-straight double-double between Oct. 27 - Nov. 9 in matches that included the first meeting with Northwestern, No. 8 Nebraska, Iowa, No. 15 Purdue and Indiana, Balyko averaged 9.29 assists/set and 3.35 digs/set during the span. On the year she is averaging 8.41 assists/set and 2.44 digs/set.
Senior middle Jasmine Stackhouse continued up the all-time block total charts after a trio on RU's last two road games put her into fourth place on the list. With 372 total blocks during her four years "On The Banks", Stackhouse needs six more to surpass Mary Kiriakou (1998-01) for third on the list.

THANK YOU SENIORS

Karysa Swackenberg - Rutgers' first-ever Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week following a 4.58 digs/set performance during a 3-0 weekend at the Rutgers Invitational. She also captured a career-high 27 digs to surpass the 1,000 career dig mark and currently ranks.third all-time at Rutgers with 1,280 career digs.
Jasmine Stackhouse - Set the Rutgers block assist career record earlier this season and has totaled 348 block assists and currently ranks fourth all-time in total blocks with 371. During her senior season she set four career highs including 13 kills and a .478 attack percentage in the first meeting with Minnesota. Earlier this season she was named to the Colgate All-Tournament team with 16 blocks and 21 kills across nine sets.
Stasa Miljevic - Put her name into the record books last season helping to set a new program record for blocks in a four-set match with 10 against Navy which included a career-high nine block assists. She captured her season-high eight kills in helping Rutgers to a win over Northwestern in aiding the Scarlet Knights' to its highest win total since 2012.

ABOUT MINNESOTA

The Golden Gophers come to the College Ave. Gym with a 21-5 overall record and 15-3 mark in Big Ten play sitting in a tie for third place in the league. Minnesota has swung back and forth between the win and loss columns in their last five matchups, most recently sweeping Ohio State, Michigan and Iowa, and falling in five sets to Nebraska and a 3-1 setback vs. Wisconsin.
Minnesota is 10th nationally and leads the Big Ten in blocks per set (2.84) with Regan Pittman checking in ninth among Division I student-athletes at 1.43 blocks/set.
On the offense, the Golden Gophers as a team are second in the conference in assists (13.11) and kills (14.14) with Pittman and Taylor Morgan each hitting at .359 to rank seventh in the Big Ten.
Bayley McMenimen aids the Minnesota attack with 7.16 assists/set with Stephanie Samedy averaging 3.17 kills/set.
Defensively, two Golden Gophers ranks among the top 15 in digs with CC McGraw averaging a league third-best 4.31 digs/set and Adanna Rollins averaging 3.13 digs/set.

ABOUT WISCONSIN

The Badgers will travel to No. 7 Penn State on Friday before meeting the Scarlet Knights in the lone meeting of the year in the last match of the regular season.
Wisconsin enters the week at 21-5 overall and 17-1 in conference play with its lone Big Ten loss being a 3-1 (27-29, 20-25, 25-20, 24-26) setback at Ohio State back on Nov. 8.
Since the loss to the Buckeyes, the Badgers have only dropped one set and collected four sweeps in the last five matches.
Around the Big Ten statistical rankings, Wisconsin leads in four categories including hitting percentage (.296), assists (13.99), kills (14.71) and aces (1.69).
Dana Rettke leads the offense ranking third in kills (3.92) and fourth in hitting percentage (.408), while Sydney Hilley leads the Big Ten at 12.29 assists/set.
Defensively, Rettke averages a league second-best 1.34 blocks/set while Tiffany Clark leads the Badgers at 3.96 digs/set for sixth in the Big Ten rankings.

ABOUT THE BIG TEN

As a team, Rutgers is seventh in the Big Ten in blocks (2.37) with Merle Weidt currently tied for 11th in the conference (1.08).
Inna Balyko, meanwhile, is ninth in the Big Ten in assists (8.39) and Karysa Swackenberg is 14th in the league in digs (3.22).
In Big Ten only matches, Rutgers has been averaging 1.10 service aces/set, with Tali Marmen ranked 11th averaging 0.33 aces/set in league matches..

IN THE RECORD BOOKS

Against Northwestern on Oct. 27, senior middle Jasmine Stackhouse took over sole possession of the Rutgers all-time block assist record and currently has 348 to top the list.
Stackhouse is also fourth on the all-time total blocks list with 371 and needs six more to surpass Mary Kiriakou (1998-01) for third on the list.
Sophomore setter Inna Balyko moved into seventh all-time in assists with against No. 8 Nebraska on Nov. 1. With 1,878 assists in her two years "On The Banks", Balyko needs 372 to move past Danaan Luc (1984-87) into sixth place.
Balyko's 833 assists in 2019 places her sixth on the single season charts. As a freshman in 2018, she captured 1,063 assists to put her name third on the list.
Senior libero Karysa Swackenberg's 15 digs vs. the Wildcats on Oct. 27 moved her up into third on the all-time digs list. She has 1,268 digs in her four years at Rutgers and needs 65 more to move into second all-time past Shayla Bush (2000-03).

TRENDING

The Scarlet Knights are 6-0 when hitting over .250 and against Iowa on Nov. 2 had its second best attack percentage in a Big Ten matchup swinging for .282.
RU is 7-4 this season when winning the third set. Most recently, RU led from start to finish in the third set at Ohio State on Oct. 23 and clinched a victory over Iowa on Nov. 2 with a 25-19 third set win.
Tali Marmen has led or tied for the team-lead in services aces 12 times this season.
Anastasiia Maksimova has led RU in kills in seven of the last nine matchups dating back to RU's first meeting with Northwestern. Over that span, she has averaged 2.42 kills/set.
Rutgers had led or tied for the lead in team blocks in 14 of its 29 matches, including eight of the last 15 Big Ten matches.
Seven Scarlet Knights have 1.5 or more kills per set, while six different RU players have led a match in kills this season.
Rutgers is 6-1 this season when winning the first set and 6-0 when leading in attack percentage.