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PHILADELPHIA \u2013\u00a0The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team (8-3, 0-1 Ivy League) opens home conference play this weekend hosting Cornell and Columbia. CALI DREAMIN’ RETURNERS SET TO LEAD THE WAY STATEMENT WINS IN YEAR ONE PALESTRA CELEBRATING YEAR 100 IN 2026-27 IVY LEAGUE ON ESPN For the latest on Penn volleyball, follow @PennVolleyball on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.
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PHILADELPHIA \u2013\u00a0The University of Pennsylvania volleyball team (8-3, 0-1 Ivy League) opens home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-298151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nGAME 1: Penn (8-3, 0-1 Ivy League) vs. Cornell (5-5, 1-0 Ivy League)
\nFriday, Oct. 2 | 6 p.m. | The Palestra
\nStream:\u00a0\u00a0ESPN+<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0
\nStats\u00a0<\/a>
\n\u00a0
\nGAME 2: Penn (8-3, 0-1 Ivy League) vs. Columbia (6-4, 0-1 Ivy League)
\nSaturday, Oct. 3 | 5 p.m. | The Palestra
\nStream:\u00a0\u00a0ESPN+<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0
\nStats\u00a0<\/a>
\n\u00a0\u00a0
\nLAST TIME OUT
\n– Against Princeton,\u00a0Haley Kerstetter<\/a> led the team in hitting percentage hitting a .526 and tallied 4.5 blocks.
\n– Zada Sanger<\/a>\u00a0had 13 kills
\n–\u00a0\u00a0Addison Pollock<\/a><\/a>\u00a0led the defense with 18 digs, her 11th\u00a0with 10+ this season.
\n–\u00a0Against the Tigers, Penn totaled 55 kills, 12.0 blocks, 71 digs and six aces, while Princeton had 59 kills, 9.0 blocks, 70 digs and 11 aces.
\n\u00a0
\nALL-LEAGUE NODS
\n– Adell Murray<\/a> (.443) and Haley Kerstetter<\/a> (.416) currently leads the league in hitting percentage.\u00a0
\n– Addison Pollock<\/a> leads the conference in digs (243) (5.40 avg\/s), and is fourth in NCAA DI in digs per set
\n– Penn currently leads in hitting percentage (.256), assists (562) (12.49 avg\/s), kills (593) (13.18 avg\/s), and digs (767) (17.04 avg\/s), which is also sixth in NCAA DI.
\n\u00a0
\nHISTORY
\n-Penn is 48-38 all-time vs. Cornell, losing their last matchup 3-1 November 7th, 2025.
\n– The Quaker’s longest win streak against Big Red is eight matches, spanning November 1st\u00a0, 2008 \u2013 October 5th, 2023.
\n-Penn is 36-13 all-time vs. Columbia, winning their last matchup 3-1 November 8th, 2025.
\n– The Quaker’s longest win streak against the Lions is 11 matches, spanning November 12th, 2005 \u2013 November 10th, 2010.
\n\u00a0
\nCOACHING STAFF NUGGETS
\n-Penn is in its second season under head coach\u00a0Tyler Hagstrom<\/a>, who played collegiately for the Cal Baptist men’s team. He was hired on July 16, 2025 after previous head coach Meredith Schamun left the Quakers to become the associate head coach at the University of Illinois.
\n-Hagstrom comes to Penn after a successful five-year run at Bucknell that included the Bison going 21-5 in 2024 and setting a program record with 13 wins in Patriot League play. Hagstrom left Bucknell as the program’s all-time leader in win percentage (59-48, .551).
\n-He holds a 76-61\u00a0career record, including a 14-13 mark with the Quakers.
\n-Hagstrom is joined by assistant coaches\u00a0Wyatt Emenaker<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Alyssa Bert<\/a>. Emenaker is in his third season and came to Penn from VCU. Bert enters her second season, joining the program after finishing her career playing at Syracuse as a graduate student. She also played at Colorado State.
\n\u00a0
\nWEEKLY AWARDS
\n–\u00a0Pollock is currently ranked first in the Ivy League with 5.63 digs per set, and fourth in the NCAA with 5.45 digs per set this year
\n\u00a0
\n2025 RUN DOWN
\n-In year one under head coach\u00a0Tyler Hagstrom<\/a>, the Quakers posted a 12-12 (6-8 Ivy League) record. They lost their season opener to Colorado (3-0) before notching sweeps over Fresno State and UC Irvine at the Anteater Classic. UPenn went on to finish 6-4 in non-conference play, earning sweeps in all six wins. The Quakers started conference play slowly, losing their first three league matches before taking down Harvard on the road, starting a span where the team won three of its next four games.<\/p>\n
\n-Penn boasts eight players who hail from California, including: seniors\u00a0Bella Rittenberg<\/a>\u00a0(Fallbrook) and\u00a0Zada Sanger<\/a><\/a>\u00a0(Berkeley); juniors\u00a0Jenna Garner<\/a>\u00a0(Pasadena) and\u00a0Hailey Hilsabeck<\/a>\u00a0(Lafayette); sophomore\u00a0Taylor Roloff<\/a>\u00a0(Alameda) and freshmen\u00a0Pilar Kelley<\/a>\u00a0(San Francisco),\u00a0Reese Stringer<\/a>\u00a0(Manhattan Beach) and\u00a0Lauryn Lewis<\/a>\u00a0(Los Angeles).
\n\u00a0
\nPRESEASON PICKS
\n-Penn was picked fifth in the Ivy League’s preseason media poll, which featured two voters from each of the schools. The Quakers\u00a0garnered 65 points, followed by Harvard (49), Dartmouth (36) and Columbia (20). Princeton (122 points) had 11 first place votes while Yale (115) had four first place votes. Brown (82) had one first place vote.
\n\u00a0
\nPUTTING THE LEAGUE ON NOTICE
\n-Last year the Quakers ranked first in the conference with 17.12 digs per set, over two dps higher than the second place team in Princeton (15.09).
\n-Penn ranked second in the Ivy with 12.91 assists per set and 13.69 kills per set.
\n– Penn currently leads in points (518), hitting percentage (.277), assists (388) (13.38 avg\/s), kills (406) (14.00 avg\/s), and digs (490) (16.90 avg\/s)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n-Penn brings back a ton of production, including its top seven scorers.\u00a0Zada Sanger<\/a><\/a>\u00a0(3.32 kps),\u00a0Jenna Garner<\/a>\u00a0(2.67 kps),\u00a0Ellie Siskin<\/a>\u00a0(2.61 kps) and\u00a0Adell Murray<\/a><\/a>\u00a0(2.06) all averaged over two kills per set in 2025.
\n-As the team’s main setter from a year ago, junior\u00a0Emery Moore<\/a>\u00a0returns after notching over eight assists (8.24 aps) a set.
\n-Defensively, seven of the team’s top eight blockers are back as well. Hailey Kerstetter (0.68 bps) and\u00a0Adell Murray<\/a><\/a>\u00a0(0.66 bps) lead the charge out of the middle.
\n-The top digging team in the Ivy brings back five players who tallied over 100 digs, including\u00a0Addison Pollock<\/a><\/a>\u00a0(360),\u00a0Jenna Garner<\/a>\u00a0(274) and\u00a0Emery Moore<\/a>\u00a0(236).
\n\u00a0
\nMATCH HIGHS
\n-The Quakers tallied 61 kills against Navy Sept. 5th, the second highest of any Ivy team in a four-set match this season.
\n-Penn had 90 digs vs. Quinnipiac, and 83 vs. Rhode Island, the top two of any Ivy team so far this season.
\n–Addison<\/a> Pollock’s<\/a>\u00a034 digs vs. Quinnipiac were the most by any conference player in a match this season.
\n–Haley Kerstetter’s<\/a> 0.833 hitting percentage vs. Lafayette is the highest of any conference player in a match this season.<\/p>\n
\n-A couple notable wins from year one of the\u00a0Tyler Hagstrom<\/a>\u00a0era included victories over three-time defending conference champion Yale (3-2 on Nov. 1) and a sweep over then Ivy League leader Cornell on Oct. 18.<\/p>\n
\n-The Quakers will celebrate 100 years of the Historic Palestra this season, the home of Penn Volleyball since 1990.
\n\u00a0
\nOH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN
\n-Penn announced that junior outside\u00a0Jenna Garner<\/a>\u00a0and senior libero\/defensive specialists\u00a0Lauren Van Wie<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Elsa McDermott<\/a>\u00a0have been named captains for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
\nA reminder that the Ivy League is paired with ESPN and you will be able to find all Penn home games, as well as road Ivy matches and select non-conference road games, on ESPN+ this fall with the same high broadcast quality you’ve come to expect. ESPN+ is a subscription-based service that offers monthly and yearly packages.<\/p>\n
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