Volleyball Opens Season at Ocean State Cup

Friday, September 6

Smithfield, R.I.

7 p.m.

Brown University

Providence

9/5/2024 11:45:00 AM | Women's Volleyball

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Brown volleyball begins its season traveling to Bryant for the Ocean State Cup over the weekend. The Bears will take on Providence on Friday (Sept. 6) before playing Bryant and Rhode Island on Saturday (Sept. 7).

All three matches over the weekend will be streamed on AmericaEast.tv.

Weekend Schedule
Friday, September 6
vs. Providence / 7 p.m.

Saturday, September 7
at Bryant / 1 p.m.
vs. Rhode Island / 4 p.m.

Scouting Brown (0-0)
ROAD WARRIORS
Brown will begin the season with nine-straight games away from home. It will be the most games away to start a season since playing nine-straight on the road back in 2018. During that stretch, Brown went 6-3.

CLEAN SWEEPS
The Bears did not spend much time on the court last season, playing in 16 straight-set matches. The Bears finished out the regular season with 10 of their final 12 matches going three sets. Overall, Brown was 14-2 in three set matches. The Bears only went five sets in three matches all season, going 2-1.

DIGGING IT
Brown has two players closing in on 1,000-career digs. Senior Victoria Vo enters the year with 927 digs and junior Jessie Golden has 712 digs.

BLOCK PARTY
Senior Beau Vanderlaan is etching her name in the Brown record book when it comes to blocks. Vanderlaan currently has 309 blocks, which sits third all-time in Brown program history. The Chicago native is 30 blocks away from tying third-place all-time and if she gets to 400 blocks, would become just the second Bear to ever reach the milestone (Leyla Goldsmith '97 - 428).

Vanderlaan also has a career blocks per set mark of 1.1, which would be the best number by a Bear in program history.

HOME SWEET HOME
Brown has enjoyed the comfort of home in the last three seasons as the Bears have compiled a 22-6 record inside of the Pizzitola Sports Center. Brown's eight home wins last season were the most since an eight-win effort back in 2014.

UNPRECEDENTED SUCCESS
Brown is in the midst of the most successful stretches in its program history. The Bears have had its top two seasons in terms of winning percentage (2021 -.769, 2023 - .731) in the past three years with 2022 posting a .600 clip. It is the first time in program history Brown has had three-straight season with at least a .600 overall winning percentage.

A winning overall record this season for hte Bears would mark four-straight winning seasons for Brown for the first time since 1998-2001.

This has translated to Ivy League play as well as Brown is 32-10 over the past three years. The Bears have posted at least nine Ivy wins in each of the last three seasons for the first time in program history and two of the only three season with double-digit wins have happened during this stretch. 2001 was the first year teams played 14 Ivy League games, before that it was only seven.

Brown had not had a stretch of three-straight years with at least a .640 winning percentage in Ivy League play in its history before the last three seasons.

VIRTUE-OUS
Head Coach Taylor Virtue needs just six wins this season to become the winningest head coach through two seasons in program history. Virtue could also become the first head coach for Brown to post winning overall and Ivy records in her first two seasons.

SCOUTING PROVIDENCE

Providence is 1-1 on the season after losing to Iowa and beating Evansville over the first weekend of the season.
Three Friars averaged 2.00 kills per set in the first two matches with Shaliyah Rhoden leading the way at 2.43.
Jiji Lykens leads the defense with 4.43 digs per set.
Brown won the last meeting against Providence in five sets, back in 2019.

SCOUTING BRYANT

Bryant is 3-1 on the season with wins over Florida Atlantic, Seton Hall and Stonehill. The Bulldogs will play Rhode Island on Friday before taking on Brown on Saturday.
Bryant has won three of its four matches despite its offense hitting just .160, while allowing opponents to hit .245.
Arianna Ugolini leads Bryant with 2.38 kills per set and is one of four Bulldogs to average 2.00 kills per set in the early season.
Brown dropped its last meeting against Bryant in 2022 in five sets. Before that meeting, Brown had won four-straight against the Bulldogs.

SCOUTING URI

Rhode Island is 0-3 with losses to Quinnipiac, North Florida and Mercer to start the season.
Madi Disu leads the offense with 2.73 kills per set and Aerin Bowman has 2.55 kills per set.
Brown has won three-straight games over Rhode Island, including two matches last season.

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