MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee volleyball will close out the non-conference schedule on Tuesday evening, when the team visits Chicago State at 6 p.m. After two days to prepare, the Panthers will then start off the 2023 Horizon League Schedule with a pair of home matches beginning with IUPUI on Friday and Purdue Fort Wayne on Saturday. The Panthers went 2-1 last week after picking up wins over DePaul on Tuesday and previously 8-1 Air Force on Friday evening.

WEEK AT A GLANCE
Tuesday, September 19 - Milwaukee at Chicago State | Jones Convocation Center | Chicago, Ill. | 6:00 pm
Thursday, September 22 - Milwaukee vs. IUPUI | Klotsche Center | Milwaukee, Wis. | 6:00 pm
Friday, September 23 - Milwaukee vs. Purdue Fort Wayne | Klotsche Center | Milwaukee, Wis. | 4:00 pm 

QUICK LINKS
Live Stats (All Matches): mkepanthers.com/coverage
Live Video (Chicago State): mkepanthers.com/coverage
ESPN+ (IUPUI & PFW): mkepanthers.com/coverage
Follow Along (On X): @MKE_Volleyball
Tickets (Home Matches): mkepanthers.com/tickets

PROMOTIONS (Full Promotional Schedule)
Friday vs. IUPUI - "Throwback Night"
Saturday vs. Purdue Fort Wayne - Alumni Day / 25th Anniversary of 1998 NCAA Tournament Team

FAST FACTS
» Milwaukee wraps up non-conference play on Tuesday as the Panthers will head south to Chicago to take on the Cougars of Chicago State at 6 p.m. In 15 all-time meetings, MKE has dropped just two sets to the Cougars with Chicago State last winning a set in the 1993 season. This will be Milwaukee's first visit to Chicago State since November 7, 1995.
» The Panthers will open conference play on Friday as the IUPUI Jaguars make their way to Milwaukee on Friday. Milwaukee and IUPUI split last year's series, the Panthers have won three-straight matchups at home in the Klotsche Center against the Jaguars.
» Milwaukee is 4-0 in their last four traditional Horizon League openers (that excludes the spring of 2021), with the Panthers recording wins against Wright State (2018), UIC (2019), Purdue Fort Wayne (2021, 2022).
» The Panthers are 15-1 in their conference season openers dating back to the 2006 season. This record excludes the spring of 2021.
» Milwaukee is 8-1 in all-time matchups against Purdue Fort Wayne, including wins in each of their all-time conference matchups since the Mastodons joined the Horizon League. PFW has won one set in that span.
» The Panthers are led by head coach Susie Johnson, who enters her 17th season as head coach and 27th overall with the program. Over her first 26 years, Johnson has been a part of 497 Panther wins, including 271 as head coach. Johnson is tied for the all-time lead for head coaching wins.

SCOUTING THE COMPETITION – CHICAGO STATE
Chicago State is off to its best start in NCAA Division I history at 7-3 to start the season including a win in it last contest against Evansville on Friday. Chicago State has a 1-0 mark against Horizon League teams this season after sweeping Oakland on September 9 in Rochester, Michigan. Chicago State is the only Division I independent in the entire country after being a member of the Western Athletic Conference for a decade from 2013 to 2022.

The Cougars are hitting .219 as a team with 483 kills and 51 service aces, as the team continues to lead opponents in all three statistical categories as a team. Yanlis Feliz and Patrycja Lagida lead the offense with 154 and 137 kills apiece. Wiktoria Zagummy has been one of the top freshmen setters in the nation with 11.11 assists per set, only Tennessee's Caroline Kerr has more assists among freshmen with 11.29 assists per set. Andrea Calderon is atop the team leaderboard with 145 digs, while Mesalina Severino has a team-best 35 blocks.

SCOUTING THE COMPETITION – IUPUI
Wrapping up non-conference play at 6-5 on Friday with a win over Indiana State, the Jaguars will open Horizon League play on Tuesday at home against Cleveland State before traveling to take on Milwaukee on Friday and Green Bay on Saturday. The team leads opponents this fall with more kills, assists, aces, and digs than their opponents in 11 matches to start the year, while trailing in blocks by an 84-55 margin.

Freshman Maia Long has been off to an impressive start as the 5-10 outside hitter leads the team with 124 kills, taking most of her passes from fellow freshmen Grace Purichia, whoe is currently third in the Horizon League with 351 assists. Purichia also leads the team with 110 digs and 22 aces. Senior Emily Alan, or Burlington, Wisconsin, makes her final weekend trip to her home state as the team's leader in blocks with 24 on the season.

SCOUTING THE COMPETITION – PURDUE FORT WAYNE
With a 5-7 record in a dozen non-conference matchups, Purdue Fort Wayne will host Oakland on Tuesday before heading to Green Bay on Friday before making its way to the Klotsche Center on Saturday afternoon. The Mastodons hosted their own tournament at the Gates Sports Center this past weekend but were unsuccessful with an 0-3 record against Miami (Ohio), SIUE, and Valparaiso.

Milwaukee's Ari Miller will face her fellow leader atop the Horizon League in terms of kills with Panna Ratkai leading the conference with 191 kills to Miller's 162. Ratkai, from Hungary, has notched double-figure kills in every match this season with the exception of four against Ball State on August 26. Ratkai has had at least 20 kills in four matches, including 20 against Miami (Ohio) on September 15. Ratkai leads the team with 14 service aces, while Nicole Jones leads the Mastodons with 127 assists. Defensively, LonDynn Betts has a team-best 198 digs, while middle blocker Jena Medearis has 35 blocks to lead Purdue Fort Wayne.

LAST TIME OUT
The Panthers went 2-1 this past week with wins over DePaul on Tuesday before picking up a win over formerly 8-1 Air Force in five sets on Friday night inside the Klotsche Center. The win over Air Force was a reverse sweep, Milwaukee's first since the 2021 season as the Panthers erased a 2-0 deficit with a 25-18, 25-20, and 15-13 set wins en route to the team's seventh win of the season.

In the match against Air Force, Madi Malone had a season-best 23 kills, while Josie Johnson had 29 and Kaley Blake added 25 assists as the pair reached 25 assists each for the second time this season. The Panthers had a season-best nine aces during the win as a team with Blake, Ari Miller, and Sarah Schrader each recording two aces apiece.

Earlier in the week, the Panthers took a set from Marquette on Thursday, who was receiving votes in the AVCA Coaches Poll, while also sweeping the Blue Demons of DePaul on Tuesday. The Panthers are 7-2 in their last nine games after starting the year with four losses.

ONE AWAY FOR JOHNSON
With one more victory, Susie Johnson will become the program's leader in head coaching wins, Johnson is currently tied with her predecessor Kathy Litzau with 271 wins apiece. The program has only had three head coaches since making the move to Division I in the fall of 1990 with Tom Pleyte leading the team in its first three Division I seasons and recording 30 wins over that span.

Johnson has served as head coach of the Panthers since the fall of 2007 and has a high water mark of 26 wins with that win total coming in both her inaugural season as head coach in addition to the 2019 season, when the team finished 26-6. In two seasons, Johnson has also won 16 conference games including a 16-0 year in 2011, while also reaching 16 wins against two losses in 2021.

DOUBLE-QUARTER
For the second time this season in the team's five-set win over Air Force, Josie Johnson had 29 and Kaley Blake had 25 assists. Earlier this season against Villanova Johnson had 30 and Blake had 26 in the five-set match against the Wildcats. The duo have now accomplished the feat on three occasions in their career, with their first instance coming on October 18 of the 2022 season, when Johnson had 26 and Blake had 29 against IUPUI.

The last time two setters had more than 30 assists in a single match came back on August 29, 2021, when Blake had 32 assists and former teammate Rylie Vaughn had 31 in the team's five-set match against Valparaiso at the Klotsche Center.

INDIVIDUAL ACCOLADES
For the second time this season, Ari Miller was selected as the Horizon League Player of the Week, this is the second time in four weeks that Miller has earned the distinction as she helped the Panthers to a 2-1 week. She led Milwaukee with better than 15 points per game with 36 kills as she hit .372 on the week while adding three aces and a dozen blocks.

Miller was also named Horizon League Player of the Week on September 5, and has been named to All-Tournament Teams on two occasions at both Western Michigan and St. Thomas. Bri Geurts was named to the All-Tournament Team at SIU-Edwardsville.

MILLER'S TOP-10 ASCENT
With 162 kills this season, Ari Miller now has 1,342 for her career with the black and gold, that total now places her fourth on the all-time Division I kills list in Milwaukee program history. Next on the list is Karen Fruit in third place all-time as Fruit finished her career with 1,370 career kills.

In addition to her kills mark, Miller now has 52 blocks in her final collegiate season to give her 368 career blocks. She is currently in eighth on the all-time blocks list and needs 10 more to reach seventh on the all-time blocks list.

CAN YOU DIG IT?
In her final season with the team, Sarah Schrader has played a vital role in the team's defensive efforts in the back row this year with a team-best 199 digs, which is already the second highest dig total for her career. In 2022, Schrader had a career-best 324 digs and is well ahead of that pace as she is averaging 4.42 digs per set compared to last year's 3.31 dig per set as a junior.

With her 36 digs against Western Illinois on September 8, Schrader moved into a third-place tie on the single-match digs list in five-set matches, equaling the mark of Myanna Ruiz in September of 2015. The single match-record for the Panthers is 41 digs set by Becky Peters in 2005, while Lauren Felsing is the only other player to reach 40 digs in a match as she did so in 2009 with 40 digs in a four-set match.

BLOCK PARTY
Following 179 blocks in 2019, the Panthers have increased their team's total block total every season, with 180 in 2021, and 211 in 2022. Through 13 matches Milwaukee has 111 blocks and are on a strong pace to continue their upward trend in 2023.

The Panthers are currently second in the Horizon League with their team block total and are also second in the league in solo blocks with 33 thus far. Lakyn Graves leads Milwaukee with 10 solo blocks, while Czhen Beneby has nine on the year. Graves is third in the Horizon League, with Beneby close behind in fourth place, Ari Miller has seven solo blocks which is tied for seventh among Horizon League student-athletes.

NO SOPHOMORE SLUMP HERE
Following strong freshman campaigns in 2022 Natalie Schmitz and Josie Johnson both reached new career-high marks at their respective positions during the opening trio of matches in Michigan.

Schmitz has secured a career-best 17 kills in three matches this season, including the team's wins over Villanova, Montana State, and Northwestern. Johnson also reached a career-high mark in the match against the Bobcats of Montana State with 31 assists.

IT'S BEEN A BRI-ZY SEPTEMBER
Over the last nine matches, Bri Geurts has been among the team leaders in hitting percentage, connecting on .344 of her total attacks this month with 82 kills. She has helped lead Milwaukee to a .271 hitting percentage as a unit, while the Panthers have outhit their opponents by nearly 100 percentage points at .271 to .189.

Geurts is already more than halfway to her career high in kills, with 93 on the season, while her career high is 183 set a season ago. Not only is Geurts connecting on more kills, but she is also hitting at a more consistent level with a .306 hitting percentage, while last year was at .236.

EIGHT IS GREAT FOR NUMBER 14
A regular for the Panthers since her career began, Madi Malone has been one of the most consistent pieces in the Panther lineup throughout the year as she plays all the way around and is second on the team with 122 digs, and second on the team with 145 kills.

This year, Malone has gotten at least eight kills in 12 of Milwaukee's 13 matches, and 22 of her last 27 matches dating back to October 1 of the 2022 season. Over that stretch, Malone's high in kills was 23 against Air Force on September 15, 2023, while her career-high of 29 kills came on October 1 of her first year with the team in 2021.

1,000 DIVISION I MATCHES
Earlier this season, the Milwaukee volleyball program played its 1,000th Division I match in its 34th season of competition. The Panthers won the match in five sets over Western Illinois at the SIUE Cougar Classic. The program's first-ever match took place on August 31, 1990, against Wright State in Macomb, Illinois at a tournament hosted by Western Illinois.

LOOKING AHEAD
Milwaukee will make its longest trip of the season, as the Panthers will head to Robert Morris on Friday for a 5:00 p.m. (CT) start in Moon Township, Pa., that will be followed by a 1:00 p.m. (CT) first serve against the Penguins of Youngstown State on the last day of September next Saturday. The Panthers will be home for the following three matches beginning with Green Bay on Tuesday, October 3.