Volleyball Welcomes Northwestern For BTN Matchup Friday, Travels To #13 Penn State on Sunday

Friday, October 21

Piscataway, N.J.

6:00 PM (ET)

Rutgers University

Northwestern

Megan Vernon on the block against Michigan at Jersey Mike's Arena

Photo by: Ariel Fox

Volleyball Welcomes Northwestern For BTN Matchup Friday, Travels To #13 Penn State on Sunday

Oct 19 | Women's Volleyball

PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers volleyball is back at Jersey Mike's Arena on Friday night to close out the season series with Northwestern in front of the Big Ten Network cameras at 6 p.m. The Scarlet Knights will also travel to No. 13 Penn State on Sunday for a 1 p.m. match.

Admission to all Rutgers volleyball home games is free with parking registration.

GAME DAY INFO

Venue:	Friday Northwestern - Jersey Mike's Arena \| Piscataway, N.J. Sunday Penn State - Rec Hall \| State College, Pa.
Jersey Mike's Arena Admission:	Free
Jersey Mike's Arena Parking:	Register Vehicle
Game Notes:	Rutgers \| Northwestern \| Penn State \| Big Ten
Statistics:	Rutgers \| Northwestern \| Penn State \| Big Ten
TV/Video:	Friday: Northwestern - BTN (Larry Punteney & Emily Ehman) Sunday: Penn State - Big Ten Network Plus
Live Stats:	Northwestern \| Penn State
Social Media:	Facebook \| Twitter \| Instagram

FAN INFORMATION

Admission is free to all home games at Jersey Mike's Arena.
Fans must register for parking here.

PROMOS

Members of the Rutgers volleyball team will be signing autographs following the Northwestern match in the lobby.

ABOUT THE SCARLET KNIGHTS

Rutgers was on the road last week taking on Illinois and No. 6 Ohio State. Against the Fighting Illini, the Scarlet Knights nearly pulled off a second-set victory leading 23-21 before the hosts closed out on a 5-1 run and an unsuccessful Rutgers challenge on the last point. Against the Buckeyes, Rutgers took on its third top-10 program of the season. Freshman Taylor Humphrey led in both matches with nine kills at Illinois and her seventh game with double-digit kills and second versus a top-10 team with 10 at Ohio State.
Redshirt freshman Alissa Kinkela continues to lead the offense at 2.80 k/s and has led RU on the attack in nine contests thus far. She is followed by Taylor Humphrey at 2.68 k/s, which included 16 kills at No. 5 Purdue.
Assisting the offense has been redshirt junior Lauren DeLo. DeLo, who is third in the rally era averaging 6.54 a/s over her career, is putting up 7.65 helpers per set and ranks ninth in the Big Ten.
Junior middle Kristina Grkovic, meanwhile, leads the squad with 20 aces, including a career-high five in RU's victory over FDU in the final nonconference weekend. Grkovic is also third on the team in kills at 2.34 k/s hitting a team-best .288. On defense, she has racked up a team-leading 64 blocks, coming up with 0.91 b/s.
Graduate student Megan Vernon also leads RU at the net with 13 solo blocks and 64 total rejections. She is also swinging at a .273 clip for the offense.
Junior Madyson Chitty is averaging 2.87 d/s this season and is fourth in the rally era with 3.15 d/s over her career. Two weeks ago, she moved into seventh on the rally-era career digs list and has 776 over her three-year career.

CONFERENCE NOTABLES

Rutgers nearly came out on top for a second set victory on Wednesday night at Huff Hall, but the host Illinois pulled out the set and match win. The Fighting Illini took the second set 26-24 in a frame that saw 11 ties and seven lead changes.
Freshman Bekah Williams led Rutgers on the attack for the first time in her career with nine kills in last week's contest with Maryland. Additionally, Taylor Humphrey collected a career-high 14 digs against the Terps.
Rutgers had a top-five weekend two weeks ago as the Scarlet Knights hosted No. 3 Nebraska and hit the road for the first time in Big Ten action with a trip to No. 5 Purdue. The Scarlet Knights were swept by the Cornhuskers, the 2021 national runner-ups, and played the Boilermakers to 21 ties and eight lead changes in the first two sets in a 3-0 loss.
Against No. 5 Purdue, Humphrey put away 16 kills becoming only the second freshman on the rally-era individual match performance top 10 list.
Rutgers opened the Big Ten slate at home with a three-set loss to Michigan, a squad ranked at No. 25 this week, and a thrilling 3-2 come-from-behind victory over Michigan State.
Against Michigan on Sept. 23, Madyson Chitty surpassed the 700-career dig mark and moved into the top 10 of the rally-era career leaders list. More recently she moved into seventh on the list.
In their first conference win, a 3-2 victory over Michigan State on Sept. 25, the Scarlet Knights were down 0-2 before storming back to take the next three sets for their first Big Ten victory. RU posted 19.0 blocks in the match, the second-most in a game of the rally era and the most ever by the Scarlet Knights in a Big Ten contest. Humphrey had her second double-double this year with 14 kills and 11 digs while Megan Vernon had a career-high 11 total blocks.
It was the second time under head coach Caitlin Schweihofer that the Scarlet Knights had come back from a 2-0 deficit to claim victory. Rutgers also had a 3-2 come-from-behind victory over UMBC last season. Before that five-set win over the Retrievers, RU's last five-set come-from-behind win was over Wofford in 2012.

NONCONFERENCE NOTABLES

Rutgers finished nonconference play at 6-6 overall, which included taking a pair of NCAA Tournament squads to five sets. The Scarlet Knights took three of five against So-Con Champion The Citadel and forced a deciding set against Towson, the defending three-time CAA Champions.
Alyssa Kinkela was named to the Rutgers All-Tournament squad following the final nonconference weekend, her second tournament team selection of the season. She averaged 3.33 kills per set and swung .316 over the course of the weekend's three games and also came up with six blocks, She had a tournament-high 13 kills against the Tigers on the final day of action hitting a career-best .414. She also served up a pair of aces along with three blocks against FDU.
Megan Vernon set a new career mark in kills with her 13 against St. Thomas and her .650 hitting percentage ranks third in the single-game rally-era record book. Additionally, Vernon has totaled 10 block assists thus far in 2022 joining the rally-era single-season top 10 in the category last weekend.
Lauren DeLo made the Rambler Classic All-Tournament Team after totaling 61 assists and 10 blocks over the weekend's three games. She made a career-high five kills against Loyola hitting .667 and had a career-high four blocks against the Ramblers, as well as Kansas State. She also served up an ace in each match.
Redshirt freshman outside hitter Alissa Kinkela was named the College of Charleston Classic Most Valuable Player. The Melbourne, Australia native totaled 46 kills, averaging 3.84 per set, hitting .310 on the weekend.
Middle blockers Kristina Grkovic and freshman Taylor Humphrey were also named to the College of Charleston All-Tournament. Grkovic led RU with 14 blocks, averaging 1.17 per set while averaging 2.50 kills per set and swinging at a .333 clip. Humphrey, in her debut weekend, racked up 37 kills, for 3.70 per frame along with 16 digs.
Also at the College of Charleston Classic, freshman Taylor Humphrey collected 18 kills in the win over the host Cougars marking the most kills by a Scarlet Knight in a three-set match of the rally era. The last RU player to have 18 kills in a three-set contest was Sahbria McLetichie against Coppin State back on Aug. 31, 2018.
The Scarlet Knights opened the 2022 season at a 3-0 start for the first time since 1998 at the College of Charleston Classic. RU opened 2022 with a 3-1 win over Fresno State and followed with a five-set victory over The Citadel, the 2021 SoCon Champions and NCAA Tournament Team, and a sweep of host College of Charleston.

COACHING NOTABLES

Head coach Caitlin Schweihofer embarks on her third season "On The Banks" having made notable strides with the program in her first two seasons.
In year one in the spring of 2021, Rutgers tripled its conference win total along with capturing numerous program firsts including its first-ever All-Big Ten honoree and Big Ten series sweeps. Over the season, RU established new team, season and match records for aces and reset program Big Ten game bests in kills, attempts, attacked percentage and assists.
A mere four months later Schweihofer's Scarlet Knights were back in action for year two where they kicked off the fall 2021 season going 8-3 for the squad's best nonconference record since 2012. Rutgers battled eight top 25 teams during Big Ten play, which included not only eight NCAA teams, but the national runner-up in Nebraska and national champion in Wisconsin.

RECORD BOOK UPDATES

Madyson Chitty became the 14th Scarlet Knight of the rally era to cross the 600-career dig in the opening weekend at the College of Charleston and broke the 700-career dig mark in the Big Ten opener on Sept. 25 against Michigan State. She is currently seventh in career digs with 776 and needs 88 more to go past former teammate Beka Kojadinovic (2017-21) for sixth.
Megan Vernon joined the top 10 career solo blocks list to close out the nonconference schedule in mid-September. Vernon currently has 17 solo blocks in her two seasons "On The Banks" and needs six more lone rejections to join Rachel Andreassian (2012-14) and former teammate Shealyn McNamara (2020-21) into a tie for sixth.
Kristina Grkovic is one solo block away from joining the rally-era top 10 season list. Grkovic currently has 15 solo rejections and needs one more to tie fellow Serbian and former Scarlet Knight Stasa Miljevic (2017-19) for tenth.

SCOUTING NORTHWESTERN

The Wildcats come to Jersey Mike's Arena at 13-7 overall and 2-6 in Big Ten play. Northwestern has lost three straight since meeting Rutgers back on Oct. 7 in Evanston taking a 25-12, 25-19, 25-22 win. The Wildcats followed with a 3-1 setback at Ohio State and a straight-set loss at home to Maryland and more recently at No. 3 Nebraska on Sunday.
Northwestern is led by Temi Thomas-Ailara with 3.96 k/s, which is third in the Big Ten, with Hanna Lesiak adding 2.78 k/s and Kathryn Randorf contributing 2.58 k/s. Alexa Rousseau sets up the attack with 10.26 a/s, fourth best in the league, and leads Northwestern at the service line with 21 aces.
Defensively, the Wildcats are led by Megan Miller at 4.08 d/s, coming in fifth in the Big Ten, and Leilani Dodson's 52 total blocks averaging 0.76 per set. Dodson also has 123 kills under her belt and is third in the Big Ten with a .386 attack percentage.

SCOUTING PENN STATE

The Nittany Lions are ranked 13^th in this week's AVCA Top 25 and begin the week at 15-4 overall and 4-4 in conference. Penn State will be at Maryland on Friday night before returning home to host the Scarlet Knights.
Sunday's meeting will mark the 51^st meeting between the two squads. The two teams were also conference foes back in the Atlantic 10 days. The Scarlet Knights overcame a two-set deficit against the Lions to win the 1982 Atlantic 10 title 8-15, 13-15, 15-8, 15-10, 15-12 and become the first women's team at Rutgers to earn an automatic bid to an NCAA championship.
Penn State is led by Kashauna Williams at 3.25 k/s with Seleisa Elisaia setting up the attack with 9.83 a/s. Elisaia is fifth in the Big Ten in the category. Maddy Bilinovic, meanwhile, leads the squad with 18 service aces.
Bilinovic also leads the defense with 3.55 d/s while Allie Holland has collected 81 blocks at the net averaging 1.40 per set, ranking sixth in the conference.

UP NEXT

The Scarlet Knights are back on the road for its lone meeting with Indiana on Friday, Oct. 28 in Bloomington with first serve set for 7 p.m.
Rutgers will return home for its lone match at the College Avenue Gym on Sunday, Oct. 30 against Illinois at 1 p.m.
Trick or Treat with the Scarlet Knights as fans coming to the College Ave Gym to cheer on Rutgers wearing a Halloween costume can pick up free candy.
Admission is free to the College Avenue Gym.
Parking for all home games is free with registration.

Follow Rutgers women's volleyball on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

- RU -