Volleyball Welcomes No. 19 Purdue In B1G Home Opener

Sunday, September 24

Piscataway. N.J.

1:00 PM

Rutgers University

Purdue

Photo by: Ben Solomon

Volleyball Welcomes No. 19 Purdue In B1G Home Opener

Sep 21 | Women's Volleyball

PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers volleyball hosts No. 19 Purdue on Sunday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. at Jersey Mike's Arena for its first home conference tilt of the season.

GAME DAY INFO

Venue:	Jersey Mike's Arena \| Piscataway, N.J.
Admission:	Free
Parking:	Click here to register
Game Notes:	Rutgers \| P urdue
Statistics:	Rutgers \| P urdue
Video:	BTN+ (Pay Boyle & Gigi Speer)
Live Stats:	Statbroadcast.com
Social Media:	Facebook \| Twitter \| Instagram

PROMOTIONS

Rutgers will welcome back and honor its alumnae for Letterwinner's Day.
Members of the Scarlet Knights will be the concourse post-match for autographs.

ABOUT THE SCARLET KNIGHTS

Rutgers entered Big Ten play on Wednesday night at 8-2 overall, marking the program's best nonconference record since the 2012 season. Among the nonconference highlights include a 3-1 win at Rider that gave head coach Caitlin Schweihofer her 100th career win, a 3-1 victory at Columbia with redshirt sophomore Alissa Kinkela capturing the fifth-best hitting percentage in a match in school history and most recently senior Madyson Chitty becoming the 10th Scarlet Knight in history to reach 1,000 career digs in a five-set match with Princeton.
The Scarlet Knights opened conference play on Wednesday night on BTN at No. 15 Penn State. RU hit .310 to open the match in a 25-17 setback with PSU taking the second set 25-15 and closing out the evening with a 25-17 win in the third frame. Sophomore Taylor Humphrey led the team for the second time this season putting away eight kills.
Kinkela leads the offense with 3.02 k/s and a .368 hitting percentage and is second at the net with 0.78 b/s. Her current hitting percentage places her second in the rally-era season leaders behind leader Alex Jones who swung .383 in 2011. Over the last three nonconference matches, Kinkela hit .457 with 41 kills on 81 attacks with only four errors to average 3.42 k/s from the right pin.
Senior middle Kristina Grkovic and sophomore Bekah Williams are both second on the squad at 2.27 k/s each. Grkovic is hitting .372 along with a team-leading 16 aces, which included a career-high tying five against N.C. State. She is currently ranked ninth in the Big Ten at the service line. Last week, Grkovic cracked the Rutgers rally-era career kills (529) and aces (63) top ten lists. The Belgrade, Serbia native also leads the block at 1.07 b/s and is among RU's rally-era career leaders in the category Williams, meanwhile, captured a career-high 13 kills in the five-set nonconference finale versus Princeton last Friday.
Fifth-year senior Alyssa Nayar and redshirt junior Chelsea Harvey aid the attack on the set. Nayar is averaging 8.61 helpers per set, ranking 10th in the Big Ten, and is second on the team with 2.75 d/s. She also leads the Scarlet Knights with four double-doubles on the season. Harvey, meanwhile, is putting up 7.09 a/s including averaging 10.83 in wins against Morgan State and Columbia
Senior Madyson Chitty is currently logging 3.34 d/s. The Lewis Center, Ohio native became the 10th Scarlet Knight in history to reach the 1,000 career digs mark last Friday night against Princeton and is currently tied for eighth all-time at Rutgers.
Rutgers returns nine letterwinners and welcomes six newcomers to the court for the 2023 campaign.
Eighty-four percent of last year's attack is back including Kinkella who recorded a team-leading 2.76 k/s and Humphrey, who as a rookie collected 2.54 k/s. Kinkela totaled 301 kills in 2022 marking the ninth-most by a Scarlet Knight in a rally-era season. Humphrey also had another notable record book entry as she tied for most kills in a rally-era three-set match with 18 kills against the College of Charleston.

SCOUTING PURDUE

The Boilermakers mark the second-consecutive top 25 opponent for the Scarlet Knights and enter the week at 6-3 overall. Purdue has picked up wins over No. 19 Marquette, No. 19 Kentucky and No. 23 Kansas along the way and will travel to Maryland for a Friday night match before making its way to New Jersey.
Offensively, Purdue is led by freshman outside Chloe Chicoine at 4.24 k/s with Eva Hudson contributing 3.63 k/s. Aiding the attack are senior Taylor Anderson and graduate student Lorrin Poulter at 9.96 and 8.53 a/s respectively.
At the net, junior middle Raven Colvin has made 47 blocks averaging 1.24 per set. Also, graduate Maddie Schermerhorn is giving the defense 4.32 d/s.

RUTGERS ON THE RISE

In Caitlin Schweihofer's first season, played in the spring of 2021 due to Covid-19, the Scarlet Knights tripled its conference win total en route to capturing numerous program firsts. Among the team's first were its first-ever All-Big Ten honoree and Big Ten series sweeps. The Scarlet Knights won their first-ever Big Ten home opener, earned victories over Indiana and Michigan State for the first time in history, captured two series sweeps against Maryland and Michigan State, picked up set victories against No. 4 Nebraska and No. 10 Purdue and pushed No. 19 Ohio State to five sets and match point. RU established new team, season and match records for aces and reset program Big Ten game bests in kills, attempts, attack percentage and assists, as well as individual conference superlatives in attack percentage, assists and digs.
Returning to fall ball for the 2021 season only three and a half months after the conclusion of the Big Ten-only 2020 season, Rutgers continued to make strides going 8-3 for its best nonconference record since 2012. During the season the Scarlet Knights battled eight Top 25 teams during Big Ten play, a conference that sent eight teams to the NCAA Tournament, including the year's national champion. Rutgers captured set wins over No. 8 Purdue and No. 15 Penn State and took Illinois to five sets in front of a national audience on BTN. Inna Balyko wrapped up her career fifth all-time in assists and ninth all-time in block assists, while Kamila Cieslik became the rally era leader in matches played (132) and Beka Kojadinovic concluded her career as the rally era leader in aces.
Last season, Rutgers incorporated eight newcomers into the mix continuing to make notable strides. The Scarlet Knights opened the year at 3-0 for the first time since 1998 and battled eight Top 25 teams during Big Ten play and eight teams that advanced to the 2022 NCAA Tournament. During the nonconference schedule, four Scarlet Knights were named to All-Tournament squads. Altogether Rutgers had 11 entries among the rally-era season leaders list including Kristina Grkovic in aces, Madyson Chitty in digs, Alyssa Nayar in assists per set, and Taylor Humphrey and Alissa Kinkela in kills per set.

UP NEXT

Rutgers volleyball is back at Jersey Mike's Arena on Wednesday, Sept. 27 for a BTN matchup with Maryland at 6 p.m. Chris Vosters and Rainelle Jones will be on the call. Admission is free.

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