MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee opens the 2024 season on Friday evening, when the Panthers welcome in the No. 5 Stanford Cardinal to the Klotsche Center at 6 p.m.
 
Following the home matchup, the Panthers will be heading to DeKalb, Illinois for a neutral-site showdown against Western Illinois on Aug. 31, followed by a bout with host Northern Illinois to open the month of September.
 
WEEK AT A GLANCE
Friday, Aug. 30 | Milwaukee vs. Stanford | Klotsche Center | Milwaukee, Wis. | 6:00 pm
Saturday, Aug. 31 | Milwaukee vs. Western Illinois | Convocation Center | DeKalb, Ill. | 7:00 pm
Sunday, Sept. 1 | Milwaukee at Northern Illinois | Convocation Center | DeKalb, Ill. | 3:00 pm
 
GAME LINKS
ESPN+ (Stanford / Northern Illinois): mkepanthers.com/coverage
Live Stats (All Matches): mkepanthers.com/coverage
Flash Sale Tickets (Stanford): Ticket Link

QUICK HITS
» Milwaukee opens the 2024 season at home against the No. 5 Stanford Cardinal on August 30 to open their 35th Division I season. This will be the first time since 2004 that the Panthers will open their season with a stand-alone single match that is not part of a multi-team event. In 2004, the Panthers hosted North Dakota State and swept the Bison.
» The Panthers meet Stanford for the first time on the opposite side of the net. The Cardinal are the first nationally ranked opponent to visit the Klotsche Center since Iowa State paid a visit to the Cream City on August 29, 2008, with Milwaukee pulling off the five-set upset win over the 18th-ranked Cyclones as part of the Panther Invitational that season.
» With Stanford's ranking, they become the first top-five opponent that Milwaukee has played since taking on the No. 4 Florida Gators in September 2013. Florida is the only top-five team that Milwaukee has played in program history. The Panthers are 1-5 in their six all-time meetings against top-10 opponents with their lone win coming on September 1, 1999, against No. 9 Wisconsin. The Panthers are 2-35 in matches against top-25 foes.
» After meeting in the SIUE Cougar Classic in 2023, Milwaukee will meet Western Illinois in a neutral site match at Northern Illinois and look for another victory after downing the Leathernecks in five sets last year.
» Milwaukee and Northern Illinois renew their rivalry for the first time since 2019, when the Panthers swept NIU at the Klotsche Center. The Panthers have won seven of their last 11 matches against the Huskies dating back to 1996, when the two teams were member of the Midwestern Collegiate Conference.

LOOKING AT STANFORD
Since taking over as head coach of the Cardinal ahead of the 2017 season, Kevin Hambly has won 171 matches including back-to-back national championships in 2018 and 2019. The Cardinal have made the Elite Eight each of the past two seasons, falling to National Cham-pion Texas in four sets in 2023.

Stanford has big shoes to fill with the departure of three-time All-American Kendall Kipp, who led the team with 589 points, including 481 kills and 52 aces, while adding 110 blocks. The team also lost Second Team All-American Caitie Baird, while the team returns setter Kami Miner, who earned First Team All-American accolades a year ago.

Miner finished the season third in the nation with 1,408 assists last season, just 13 off the national lead. She will look to find Second Team All-American, Elia Rubin on the outside, who was second to Kipp in kills with 424 in 2023. Sami Francis will be a threat in the middle and is the team's leading returner in blocks with 118 a year ago. No stranger to athletic success, true freshman Sidney Duncan is the daughter of Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer and five-time NBA Champion, Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs.

LOOKING AT WESTERN ILLINOIS
Head coach Dave Starr enters his third season with the Leathernecks in Macomb after stops in Lake Charles, La. with McNeese, and Moon Township, Pa. with Robert Morris. Starr has 13 wins in two seasons with Western Illinois and owns 278 victories in 20 years overall on the sideline.

Keyana Cruse led the way offensively for WIU a season ago with 403 kills and 468 points, which included a season-best 24-kill effort against Milwaukee in a five-set match at the Cougar Invitational hosted by SIUE on September 8. The OVC First-Team selection a year ago transferred to Western Illinois after two seasons at UNLV in 2021 and 2022.

Brittany Wulf added 18 kills in the five-set thriller with the Panthers early last season and was second to Cruse with 229 kills on the season as a junior. Wulf is also the team's top returning server with 33 aces on the year. Wisconsin native Maggie Craker amassed 1,073 assists, eclipsing the 2,000 career assist mark late last season. Karli Wenzel had 510 digs to lead the Leathernecks in 2023 and is also back for a Western Illinois team selected ninth of 11 teams in the Ohio Valley Conference.

LOOKING AT NORTHERN ILLINOIS
Sondra D'Amore enters her second season as the head coach of the Huskies after an eight-win inaugural campaign as head coach at NIU. Before making her way to DeKalb, Illinois, D'Amore coached under Amanda Berkley at Loyola Chicago, sister of Panther head coach Susie Johnson.

NIU was projected to finish eighth in a log jammed middle of the Mid-American Conference preseason poll, selected just one point behind Central Michigan, and one point ahead of Akron.

Despite not having a player selected to the Preseason All-League team, the Huskies return their top-two point scorers with Charli Atiemo (327.5 points), and Nikolette Nedic (324.5 points), the pair combined for 530 kills, while Atiemo had a team-best 26 aces and 107 blocks a season ago. The Huskies did graduate a player of note from a season ago, Katie Erdmann, sister of current Milwaukee defensive specialist, Kara Erdmann.

UP NEXT
After the trip to DeKalb, Illinois this weekend, Milwaukee will head on their longest road trip of the season with three matches in Dallas, Texas. The Panthers will take part in the Southern Methodist Invitational taking on host SMU (Sept. 5), followed by Loyola Marymount (Sept. 6), and Weber State (Sept. 7) at Moody Coliseum in Dallas.

SEASON OPENERS
Milwaukee has struggled of late out of the gate having not won a season opener since the 2019 season, when the Panthers knocked off Arkansas State in five sets at the Belmont Tournament in Nashville.

The Panthers are 4-6 in their last 10 season openers, while they are 7-10 under the direction of Susie Johnson. Since joining Division I, the Panthers are 15-19 in year openers but are 15-14 since winning their first opener in 1995.

500 CAREER MATCHES
On Sunday, September 1, Susie Johnson will lead the Panthers for the 500th time in her career, she enters the 2024 season having served as head coach at Milwaukee in 497 matches.

Last season, Johnson earned her 272nd head coaching victory to become the department's all-time leader in wins in Division I history. She also recorded her 500th win as a Panther, earning 226 victories in 10 seasons as an assistant, while earning her 274th win as head coach against Purdue Fort Wayne on September 23.

NATIONAL RANKING
Milwaukee finished the regular season second in the nation with 1,608 kills, and after its postseason match against Cleveland State in the Horizon League First Round, added to its total to finish the year with 1,661, which was 22nd most in all of Division I in 2023 following the conclusion of the NCAA Championship.

The Panthers also finished 2023 with 1,546 assists, which was also 22nd in Division I, while the team finished 52nd in total blocks with 279.5. Both of those numbers were tops in the Horizon League. With a .255 team hitting percentage, Milwaukee led the Horizon League and finished the year 39th among 332 DI programs.

BACK ON TOP
After earning Horizon All-League First Team honors as a freshman in 2021 and second team accolades in 2022, Madi Malone put together a strong season to regain a spot on the league top team as a junior in 2023.

Malone had 428 kills in 2023, good enough for ninth on the single-season list while she continues her march towards the top-10 in all-time kills with 1,105 through her first three seasons. Currently occupying the 10th spot on the career kills list is Leanne Felsing with 1,146.

In addition to her total kills mark, Malone is sixth on the career kills per set list with 3.18 through 348 career sets, while she has the ninth-most attacking attempts at 3,080 and is on base to potentially break that mark in 2024.

NEW CREW
Milwaukee welcomes six newcomers to the roster in 2024, including two transfers and four true freshmen.

Making their way to Milwaukee from Memphis is middle blocker Alexis Lewis, who played in 38 matches with the Tigers over three seasons. Also transferring to the Black & Gold is Hallie Cook, who after playing a multitude of positions at UNC Greensboro, will look to settle into a defensive specialist/libero role with the Panthers.

The four freshmen represent three different states including a pair from Wisconsin, as Emily Hansen hails from Mayville, and Jenna Soerens comes from Oostburg. Milica Tomic is a setter from Dyer, Indiana, while Gabby Wire comes north from her home state of Illinois, where she played high school volleyball at Crystal Lake South in the Chicago suburbs.

TOUGH SLATE ON TAP
Milwaukee is scheduled to play a tough slate of competition in 2024 including six teams that qualified for the 2023 NCAA Championship. The list includes Stanford (Aug. 30), Southern Methodist (Sept. 5), Weber State (Sept. 8), Wisconsin (Sept. 10), Wright State (Oct. 18-19), and Marquette (Oct. 22).

The 2024 American Volleyball Coaches Association Preseason Poll included Wisconsin (No. 3), Stanford (No. 5), Marquette (No. 24), as well as Southern Methodist and Loyola Marymount, who were receiving votes in the preseason tally.

PANTHERS VS. RANKED
In 37 meetings all-time against top-25 opponents, the Panthers have wins at home against No. 9 Wisconsin (Sept. 1, 1999) and at home against No. 18 Iowa State (Aug. 29, 2008).

Milwaukee is currently scheduled to play two opponents in the top-10 of the AVCA poll, the last time the Panthers played a top-10 team was when they played No. 4 Florida on Sept. 21, 2013. The instance against Florida was the only time Milwaukee had played a top-five team before playing Stanford to open the season.

WELCOME TO THE ATLANTIC COAST?
Milwaukee will be playing two programs that changed their conference this past summer, including Stanford on Aug. 30, and Southern Methodist on Sept. 5. Despite playing in Stanford, California and Dallas, Texas, respectively the pair join the Atlantic Coast Conference in what will be one of two leagues to feature 18 teams in 2024-25 in addition to the Big Ten Conference.

Among the 18 teams that currently comprise the Atlantic Coast Conference, Milwaukee currently has an 8-11 overall record. The Panthers are 2-0 all time against Boston College and Syracuse, 2-2 against Virginia Tech, 1-2 against Georgia Tech, 1-3 against Notre Dame, and have identical 0-1 marks against Duke, Miami, NC State, and Southern Methodist.

PRESEASON POLL
After finishing the 2023 Horizon League schedule in a tie for second place with a 13-5 record, the Panthers were selected to finish third in the 2024 preseason poll, amassing 73 points and finishing just ahead of Green Bay with 71 points.

Wright State was selected to repeat as champions of the Horizon League with nine first-place votes and 99 points overall, while Northern Kentucky received the final first-place vote and recorded 85 points. Cleveland State took fifth with 63 points, while Oakland was projected to take the final playoff berth with 53 points.