Women's Volleyball October 16, 2018

Milwaukee Looks To Continue Hot Streak At Home

Panthers close out five-match homestand Friday, Saturday

MILWAUKEE – Coming off a 2-0 weekend, the Milwaukee volleyball team will look to keep things rolling with two more matches on their home court, starting Friday. The Panthers will take on Northern Kentucky Friday afternoon at 6 pm from the Klotsche Center before wrapping up their current five-match homestand Saturday afternoon with a 4 pm contest against Wright State.

• Scouting Notebook
Northern Kentucky is off to its best conference start since moving to the Horizon League in 2015. The Norse currently sit in fourth place, just one game ahead of Milwaukee at 5-3 at the midway point of league play. NKU dropped a five-set thriller to rival Wright State on Sunday in Dayton. Haley Libs had 14 kills and 16 digs in that match. Libs leads Northern Kentucky with an average of over four kills/set - ranking her second in the conference.

After their win over NKU on Sunday, Wright State improved to 3-5 - good for sixth place in the Horizon League and one game behind Milwaukee. That capped a 2-0 weekend for the Raiders under first-year head coach Allie Matters, improving them to 11-9 overall thus far. WSU has used a short bench all season, with that being especially true this weekend with just two non-starters seeing action. While the Raiders' hitting percentages stood at .188 and .204 in their two most recent wins, their defense was awfully impressive with 11 and 12 blocks and 81 and 90 digs in those matches.

• Series History
After a close loss to NKU earlier this year, Milwaukee's all-time lead over the Norse was trimmed to just 4-3. Meanwhile, the Panthers have a much longer-tenured history with Wright State, with a 42-17 edge all-time, including a 41-15 lead at the Division-I level.

• Hitting The Halfway Point
Milwaukee is sitting in a great spot at the midway point of the conference season. With eight league matches in the books, the Panthers sit at 4-4 for fifth place overall and just one game back of Friday's opponent Northern Kentucky. MKE also enters the current weekend two spots ahead of a two-way tie for seventh place. That is significant as only the top six qualify for the Horizon League Tournament, hosted by the regular season champion.

• Upperclassman Leadership
Milwaukee had a pair of upperclassmen step up big in the fifth set in their win over Oakland last Saturday. Kylie Wilks had six of her team-high 14 kills in the final frame, while senior Shanon Volpis was a perfect 4-for-4 on attacks in the fifth. Volpis ended up finishing with a season-high 13 kills in the big win over the Golden Grizzlies.

• Grabbing League Honors
Freshman Jess Grabowski was named the Horizon League's Defensive Player of the Week Sept. 17 after an awfully impressive showing at Bradley's home tournament. The first-year libero turned in her most complete weekend performance to date, averaging over seven digs per set in the three-match tournament, including racking up 28 in a three-setter against the host Braves.

• Youth Movement
Susie Johnson once again has quite a young squad to work with this season. Nine of Milwaukee's 17 players are either freshmen or sophomores. Combine that with the fact that three of the Panthers upperclassmen are new to the team this year and MKE will look quite a bit different at the start of 2018 than they did at the end of last season.

Not only does Milwaukee have a large number of young players on this year's roster, but they are seeing the majority of minutes so far. Five freshmen were in the starting lineup for the first serve of the season, something that has largely remained unchanged through the first 19 matches of the year.

• Kiekhofer Killin' It
Junior Louise Kiekhofer had an outstanding start to the Horizon League slate. In the conference opener, the outside hitter racked up 27 kills while hitting .479 - both career highs. In fact, her previous career high for kills was 14 - nearly doubling that total in the win over Wright State. The 27 kills are also the most in the Horizon League in a four-set match this season and rank 11th in the entire NCAA.

• I'll Take Milwaukee For 500
Milwaukee has a very rich volleyball history with 13 league titles and 10 NCAA Tournament appearances. Now in its 29th season at the Division I level, the Panthers are on the verge of notching win No. 500 in program history. MKE enters the week with 496 total wins.

• Catch All The Action
Milwaukee volleyball will once again be readily available for the viewing pleasure of MKE fans this season, with nine home games streamed live on ESPN+. The Horizon League and ESPN have an agreement that includes ESPN hosting the league's digital network on the ESPN+ platform.

ESPN+, which will host the Horizon League women's soccer, men's soccer and volleyball championships this fall, offers fans thousands of live events, on-demand content and original programming not available on ESPN's linear TV or digital networks. Fans can subscribe to ESPN+ for just $4.99 a month (or $49.99 per year) and cancel at any time. Launched in April of 2018, ESPN+ is an integrated part of a completely redesigned ESPN App.

• Up Next
Milwaukee wraps up its home stretch where it will have played seven of its last eight games at home by returning to the road next week. The Panthers head to the Detroit area Friday for a rematch with Oakland before making the drive to Youngstown, Ohio for a Saturday matinee with the Penguins.

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Players Mentioned

#3 Louise Kiekhofer: OH; 5' 9"; Junior

#14 Kylie Wilks: OH; 5' 8"; Junior

#12 Jess Grabowski: DS; 5' 4"; Freshman

#18 Shanon Volpis: RS; 6' 2"; Senior

Players Mentioned

#3 Louise Kiekhofer
: 5' 9"; Junior
: OH

#14 Kylie Wilks
: 5' 8"; Junior
: OH

#12 Jess Grabowski
: 5' 4"; Freshman
: DS

#18 Shanon Volpis
: 6' 2"; Senior
: RS