Women's Volleyball Weekly Release - Week 3

Yale's Haley Wessels and Penn's Ronnie Bither

Photos courtesy of Penn Athletic Communications and Yale Sports Publicity

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Ivy League volleyball embarks on its busiest week of the 2012 season with 25 matches on the slate, including two mid-week tilts.

A couple of local rivalries are renewed on Wednesday, Sept. 12 as Brown hosts cross-town foe Providence and Princeton makes the short trek up the New Jersey Turnpike to take on Seton Hall. All eight Ivy teams return to early season tournament play over the weekend, including an action-packed ledger of 16 matches on Saturday, Sept. 15.

Harvard and Princeton each captured two wins in three contests last weekend and look to build upon that success with the Crimson competing in the inaugural New England Classic against Connecticut, Northeastern and Boston College and the Tigers roaming to the Nation's Capital for the George Washington/Nike Invitational to take on the host Colonials, Brigham Young and New Hampshire.

Brown and Yale are headed to the west coast with the Bears playing in the Fullerton Classic and the Bulldogs playing in the San Diego Tournament. Two League teams play in the City of Brotherly Love as Cornell joins Central Connecticut State and Navy in the Temple Invitational and Penn welcomes George Mason, Radford and Rutgers to The Palestra for the Crowne Plaza Philadelphia West Penn Invitational.

Columbia enjoys its home court for the first time this season hosting Colgate, Rhode Island and Hofstra in its own invitational. Dartmouth remains on the road at Buffalo's Blue and White Classic playing three matches aginst the host Bulls, Syracuse and Hartford. 

Ivies earning All-Tournament honors from the second weekend of tournament play were:

Brown - Taylor Bantle at the Yale Invitational
Columbia - Molly Winger at the Delaware Invitational
Cornell - Kelly Reinke at the Rose Hill Classic
Dartmouth - Elisa Scudder at the Sacred Heart Invitational
Harvard - Taylor Docter, Kathleen Wallace and Caroline Walters at the Harvard Invitational
Penn - Emma White at the Molten Classic Presented by Hilton Garden Inn
Yale - Jesse Ebner and Haley Wessels at the Yale Invitational

PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Yale senior middle blocker Haley Wessels (Dallas) hit .558, averaged 3.25 kills per set and was named to the Yale Invitational All-Tournament Team as the Bulldogs split two matches matches -- a win against Big East foe Villanova and a loss against Northwestern out of the Big Ten.

Wessels had 13 kills, hit .440 and added three block assists in a 3-1 win over Villanova. Down 12-3 to start the fourth set, she capped a rally with consecutive kills to tie the set at 23. Yale went on to take the set 26-24.

The next night, Wessels struck for 13 kills without an attack error and hit .722 with four solo blocks and one block assist against Northwestern. Through five matches, she leads the Bulldogs with a .387 hitting percentage.

Wessels grabs her first-ever Player of the Week award and gives Yale back-to-back winners for the first time since Kendall Polan (Oct. 4) and Taylor Cramm (Oct. 11) followed each other during the 2011 season.

Wessels' Weekly Stats
.558 hitting pct., 3.25 K/S, 1 ASST, 4 BS, 4 BA

ROOKIE OF THE WEEK
Penn freshman setter Ronnie Bither (San Jose, Calif.) continued to impress with her poise and decision-making at the setter position this past weekend at California's Molten Classic.

Playing near her hometown of San Jose, Bither looked comfortable in her surroundings and played aggressively when needed, evidenced by her high hitting percentage. Bither was also active on defense, coming up with a pair of double-doubles on Saturday with near-identical numbers of 34 assists and 12 digs against Northern Arizona, and 34 assists and 13 digs playing UC-Riverside.

Bither wins her second-straight Rookie of the Week honor to give Penn the last three award as  Emma White shared the final award last season with Yale's Mollie Rogers.

Bither's Weekly Stats
.318 hitting pct., 9.6 A/S, 3.1 D/S, 3 BA

HONOR ROLL
Jesse Ebner, Yale (Fr., MB - Portola Valley, Calif.)
.423 hitting pct., 3.5 K/S, 4 SA, 1 BS, 6 BA 

Elisa Scudder, Dartmouth (Jr., MB - Ashburn, Va.)
.267 hitting pct., 1.67 K/S, 7 BA

Kathleen Wallace, Harvard (Fr., OH - San Francisco, Calif.)
.519 hitting pct., 3.3 K/S, 1.0 D/S, 1 BS, 4 BA

Emma White, Penn (So., OH - Manhattan Beach, Calif.)
.217 hitting pct., 3.7 K/S, 5.4 D/S, 1 BA

Molly Winger, Columbia (So., DS/L - Windermere, Fla.)
1.000 hitting pct., 4.2 D/S, 4 ASST, 1 SA

Breanna Wong, Cornell (Fr., RS - Highlands Ranch, Colo.)
.246 hitting pct., 2.89 K/S, 1 BS, 5 BA

UPCOMING SCHEDULE
Wednesday, September 12
Providence at Brown, 7 pm
Princeton at Seton Hall, 7 pm

Friday, September 14
1-Brown at Cal State Fullerton, 4:30 pm
2-Colgate at Columbia, 7 pm
3-Dartmouth at Buffalo, 7 pm
4-Harvard at Connecticut, 7 pm
5-George Mason at Penn, 7 pm
6-Princeton at George Washington, 7 pm
7-Yale vs. UC Santa Barbara, 8 pm

Saturday, September 15
8-Central Connecticut State vs. Cornell, 10 am
2-Rhode Island at Columbia, 11 am
4-Harvard at Northeastern, 11 am
5-Radford at Penn, 11 am
6-Princeton vs. Brigham Young, Noon
1-Brown vs. Santa Clara, 12:30 pm
3-Dartmouth vs. Syracuse, 2:30 pm
7-Yale at San Diego, 3 pm
5-Rutgers at Penn, 5 pm
8-Cornell at Temple, 5 pm
3-Dartmouth vs. Hartford, 5 pm
4-Harvard vs. Boston College, 5 pm
6-New Hampshire vs. Princeton, 5 pm
2-Hofstra at Columbia, 7 pm
7-Yale vs. Fresno State, 8 pm
1-Brown vs. San Diego State, 8:30 pm

KEY:
1-Fullerton Classic, Fullerton, Calif.
2-Columbia Invitational, New York
3-Blue and White Classic, Buffalo, N.Y.
4-New England Challenge
5-Crowne Plaza Philadelphia West Penn Invitational
6-George Washington/Nike Invitational, Washington, D.C.
7-San Diego Tournament, San Diego, Calif.
8-Temple Invitational, Philadelphia