Spartans Host Nebraska Wednesday at Jenison

Wednesday, November 13

East Lansing, Mich.

7 pm

Michigan State University

Nebraska

11/11/2019 3:26:00 PM | Volleyball

2019 Volleyball Week 12 / Big Ten Week Eight:
No. 6 Nebraska at Michigan State | Michigan State at No. 7 Wisconsin
vs. Nebraska	Wednesday, Nov. 13, 7 pm \| Jenison Field House \| Tickets
	Webstream (BTN+) \| Live Stats
at Wisconsin	Saturday, Nov. 16, 8 pm ET \| U W Field House \| Tickets
	UW Field House Bag Policy
	Webstream (BTN+) \| Live Stats
Facility	MSU Athletics No-Bag Policy
Promotions (Wednesday)	Professor Appreciation Night Faculty/Staff Appreciation Night (Free admission with MSU Faculty/Staff ID)
Radio	SpartanSportsNetwork.com (or download the SSN24/7 app)
Game Notes	Michigan State \| N ebraska \| Wisconsin
Social Media	Facebook Twitter Instagram
Coverage	Watch this week's Cathy George Press Conference

The Fine Print

• MSU has its second of three straight split home/road weeks of action, starting out in a Wednesday match at home against No. 6 Nebraska before heading to Madison to take on No. 7 Wisconsin on Saturday.

• Both matches will have a live video webstream via BTN+.

• John Kreger returns behind the mic to call the action for Michigan State volleyball on the Spartan Sports Network. All games - home and away - will be carried live for the remainder of the season.

• MSU and Nebraska will meet for the 26th time on Wednesday, with the Huskers owning a 21-2-2 record in the previous meetings. Nebraska owns 10 straight wins in the series.

• The Huskers are the first team in the Big Ten to reach the 20-win mark in 2019, (20-3, 12-2 B1G). The Huskers have won four straight, including victories over Northwestern and Iowa last week.

• The first meeting of the teams this season came in week three in Lincoln, where Michigan State couldn't maintain a hot start and fell to the fifth-ranked Huskers, 3-1 (25-21, 15-25, 14-25, 22-25).
   Nebraska held the match edge in kills (53-38, blocks (14-9), digs (72-62), and hitting percentage (.196-.038), MSU's roughest hitting night of the season. Jazz Sweet led the match with 16 kills and added five blocks, and Lexi Sun had a double-double with 13 kills and 10 digs. Meredith Norris had 11 kills and nine digs, adding a pair of blocks; Audrey Alford had 15 assists and nine digs. Naya Gros led MSU with six blocks and also posted nine kills.

• The Badgers, the favorite in the Big Ten preseason poll, share the best record in B1G play (13-1) and are 17-5 overall. Kelly Sheffield is in his seventh season as the Badgers head coach.

• Wisconsin has won two straight in the all-time series with MSU, a series it leads 51-28 all-time.

• Michigan State fell to No. 6 Wisconsin, 3-0 (19-25, 16-25, 21-25) on Oct. 25, the first meeting of the teams this season. Wisconsin hit .303 in the match, holding MSU to .151. Both teams had five blocks, but the Badgers made big headway at the service line with eight aces compared to just two for MSU.
    The Spartans got 11 kills and six digs from Meredith Norris, while Biamba Kabengele added eight kills, hit a match-best .429, and provided four digs and a solo block. Emma Monks had a hand on four of MSU's five blocks and added three kills.
    Molly Haggerty had 14 kills and four digs for the Badgers, while Grace Loberg added 12 kills.

Team Notes
• MSU snapped a six-game skid with the five-set victory over Northwestern on Saturday after dropping a four-setter at [RV] Michigan earlier in the week.

• The Spartans have now completed their season series with Northwestern (1-1), Maryland (1-1), and Penn State (0-2), and completed its one-plays with Minnesota, Ohio State, Illinois, and Iowa.

• MSU sits in ninth place in the B1G standings with a 5-9 record. MSU has two games this season against four of the top five teams in the conference standings (Wisconsin, Penn State, Nebraska, and Michigan), which are a combined 60-10 in Conference play and 92-22 overall.

• With a 14-10 record, eight of the 10 losses have come to teams in the AVCA top-25 or receiving votes at the time of the match: No. 5 and No. 8 Penn State, No. 5 Nebraska, No. 6 Wisconsin, No. 7 Minnesota, No. 19 Illinois, No. 21 Tennessee, and [RV] Michigan.

• The Spartans are averaging 2.72 blocks per set which ranks third the Big Ten and 17th nationally. MSU has limited opponents to a .169 hitting percentage, which is second in the Conference and 36th nationally.

• Michigan State had a season-best 17 blocks in Saturday's match against Northwestern, bettering the 16 it had in the season opener vs. Duke and in a five-set win at Iowa (Oct. 13). MSU had 12 blocks at Michigan, doubling the Wolverine total of six.

• MSU posted double-digit block totals in back-to-back matches for the first time since Oct. 11-18 vs. Iowa and Rutgers. The Spartans have seven double-digit blocking efforts in 14 Big Ten matches and 13 of 24 matches overall.

• The Spartans posted 10 service aces in the win over Northwestern, its highest total in a match this season. MSU had just two reception errors in each match last week, a .975 reception percentage.

• The Spartans returned 14 letterwinners from the 2018 squad, and all but one starter - 2018 Team MVP Maddie Haggerty is now serving the team as a fifth-year student coach as she finishes her final semester of work toward her degree. MSU's 2019 squad features 18 players, as head coach Cathy George entered the season with three seniors, five juniors, seven sophomores, and three freshmen.

• MSU is not currently in the AVCA National Poll. Seven teams from the Big Ten are among the national top 25, with Minnesota (5), Nebraska (6), Wisconsin (7) and Penn State (8) occupying the top 10, and Purdue (16), Michigan (23) and Illinois (25) rounding out the group.

• In the most recent RPI calculations, 12 of the 14 Big Ten teams appear in the top 99, which includes five squads in the top 25 and eight in the top 50. MSU comes in this week at No. 83.
   Among MSU's non-conference opponents, three are in the top 63 - Cincinnati (25), Tennessee (59), and North Carolina (62).

• MSU has gone 141-27 (.844) in non-conference action in Cathy George's tenure (2005-19), and has never lost more than four games prior to the beginning of the Big Ten season.

• MSU currently ranks ninth in total attendance among Division I institutions, (33,385), The Spartans are seventh in average attendance in 2019, (3,035). The Spartans have four of their remaining six regular-season matches at home.
   MSU has been in the national top 10 for average attendance four straight years and 11 consecutive in the top 20, while MSU has ranked 16th or better in total attendance for 11 straight season as well.
    MSU averaged 3,727 fans over a recent four-match homestand vs. Rutgers, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

• Cathy George is one of four Big Ten head coaches to enter the season with 600+ career wins (638), along with Penn State's Russ Rose (1,271), Nebraska's John Cook (721), and Michigan's Mark Rosen (617). She ranks 15th among active coaches in coaching victories with a 638-414 overall record. She also ranks in the top 80 all-time in head coaching victories.

• On Oct. 26, Cathy George was inducted into the athletics Hall of Fame at her alma mater, Illinois State. The former Cathy Olson was a three-time All-Gateway/Missouri Valley Conference selection, helping her team to three straight NCAA Tournament bids and a 122-68 record in her career. She is still ranked fifth in the MVC record books in both aces in a season (95) and career (566). She has previously coached at North Dakota State, Texas-Arlington (where she was the first female head coach to bring a team to the Final Four, in 1989), Western Michigan before her current tenure with the Spartans, now in her 15th season.

Player Notes

• The Spartans are getting some impressive contributions from their freshman class. Biamba Kabengele shared the team lead with 10 kills against Northwestern last Saturday and tied her season best with three blocks, while Emma Monks produced season bests of six kills and seven blocks against the Wildcats.

• Kabengele has twice been named the Big Ten Freshman of the Week this season, (Sept. 26 and Oct. 23). The first-year player is averaging 2.15 kills and 0.55 digs kills per frame. She's also contributing 0.34 blocks per set.

• Monks has played limited minutes, but has made the most of what time she has had in the rotation. She stepped in and played four of the five sets against Northwestern, and on the year is averaging 1.24 kills, 1.00 blocks, 0.38 digs, and a .328 hitting percentage.

• Meredith Norris is averaging 3.00 kills, 2.05 digs, and 0.48 blocks per set, and leads the team with 280 points as a six-rotation player. Last week, she averaged 2.00 kills, 1.00 blocks, and 1.89 digs per frame, including tying her career best with five blocks vs. Northwestern.

• Norris has missed a double-double with on five occasions this season where she had double-digit kills and nine digs. She has two of MSU's five double-doubles this season.

• Lauren Swartz shared the team lead with her season-best 10 kills against Northwestern (and added four blocks), and is averaging 1.30 kills per frame to go with her 0.84 blocks, 0.67 digs per set. She shared the team lead with six blocks against Rutgers, which tied her career best for the second time in three weeks.

• Molly Johnson posted six kills, four digs, and three blocks against Northwestern, and on the season is contributing 1.54 kills, 0.70 blocks, and 0.49 digs, hitting .223 on the season.

• Alyssa Chronowski ranks second on the team with 2.39 kills per set, and adds 0.62 blocks and 0.48 digs per frame. She posted eight kills and four blocks (three solo) at Michigan last Wednesday.

• The Spartans have averaged a half a block better than their opponents through 22 matches (2.72-2.14). MSU has six players who average between 0.62 and 1.22 blocks per set, led Naya Gros (1.22) and Becka Poljan (1.08); Lauren Swartz is third with 0.84, Molly Johnson is at 0.70, and Alyssa Chronowski is at 0.63. Emma Monks is averaging 1.00 in her limited action as well.

• Naya Gros has returned to her natural position (middle blocker) after playing some games on the outside. She is averaging 1.77 kills, hitting .287 (15th, B1G) and posting 1.22 blocks per set, good for seventh in the Conference.

• Gros led the Spartans with a .412 hitting percentage against Northwestern, putting down nine kills against just two errors while adding a team-best seven blocks and adding three digs.

• Rebecka Poljan ranks 15th in the Big Ten with 1.08 blocks per frame, adding 1.81 kills and 0.38 digs per set. She had eight kills, hit .238 and added five blocks in last Wednesday's match at Michigan.

• Junior libero Jamye Cox averages 4.02 digs per frame, good for fifth in the Big Ten. Cox has posted double-digit dig efforts in 22 of the 24 matches this season, including popping up 28 last Wednesday at Michigan, tying her season best and one shy of her career high.

• Cox with 17 digs in MSU's match at Maryland (Oct. 5), she achieved 1,000 in her career. Now with 1,156 over three seasons, she ranks ninth all time in the MSU career record book. Cox ranks fourth all-time in MSU's career digs per set rankings (3.76).

• In Saturday's win over Northwestern, Cox had a career- best four service aces in addition to 12 digs and three assists.

• The Spartans run a 6-2 offense, with senior Maggie Midgette, sophomore Elena Shklyar and graduate transfer Audrey Alford all seeing action. They average 4.45, 4.93 and 4.69 assists per set, respectively.

• Shklyar ranks 14th in the Big Ten in assists per set (4.93), and is adding 1.22 digs per frame. She had a season-best 31 assists and added four digs in the win over Northwestern, the most assists in a game for any of the three setters this season.

• Alford has 2,952 career assists over her three years at Oklahoma and this year at MSU. She is averaging 4.81 assists and 1.52 digs per frame.

• Senior captain Samantha McLean is averaging 1.89 digs/s on the season as MSU's first DS. She had 12 digs last Wednesday vs. the Wolverines.

• MSU's depth at DS isn't always apparent because the squad runs a 6-2, but sophomore Lauryn Gibbs is averaging 1.00 digs with a pair of aces in 26 sets.