Volleyball Closes Out Season Series at Minnesota on Friday and Home Against Illinois on Sunday

PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers volleyball heads to Minnesota on Friday, Oct. 20 to close out the season series with the Golden Gophers at 8 p.m. and returns home to host Illinois at Jersey Mike’s Arena on Sunday, Oct. 22 at 3 p.m.
 

• Sunday vs. Illinois – KID’S CLUB DAY – Pre-match all kids can enjoy an inflatable bounce house, caricature artist and face painter in the hospitality corner while Rutgers Kids Club members can pick up Sir Henry and Rutgers Volleyball pins at the marketing tables. Rutgers Kids Club members will also have the opportunity for a post-match autograph session. 

• Rutgers embarks on its third-straight road trip closing out the season series with Minnesota, a team receiving votes in this week’s top 25 poll, on Friday and returns home on Sunday to host Illinois, whom the Scarlet Knights saw last week in Champaign.
• The Scarlet Knights are coming off road swings at No. 1 Wisconsin and Illinois. Against the top-ranked Badgers, Rutgers knotted the score at 10-10 and 12-12 in the first set and trailed 15-14 with sophomore Taylor Humphrey ending the match with six kills, fifth-year senior Alyssa Nayar adding helpers on all but three kills and freshman Zora Hardison leading the block in her first career start. Against Illinois, RU captured its first-ever set win at Huff Hall in a 3-1 setback with Humphrey, redshirt sophomore Alissa Kinkela and freshman Anna Hartman all in double-figure kills and Nayar posting her seventh double-double of the year.
• In their last meeting with Minnesota, Rutgers captured a historic victory as they knocked the then-No. 16 Golden Gophers for the program’s first-ever top-25 win. Three Scarlet Knights landed in double-figures with Alissa Kinkela and the eventual Big Ten Setter of the Week Alyssa Nayar each collecting double-doubles. Kinkela was one kill shy of tying her season-high with a team-leading 17 kills and 13 digs and Nayar added 45 helpers and 14 digs. Anna Hartman swung at a .407 clip with 12 kills on 27 swings with only one error and Rikki Williams collected 10 kills.
• Heading into the week, redshirt sophomore right side Alissa Kinkela leads the offense with 3.10 k/s both overall and in Big Ten play.  In her third season “On The Banks”, Kinkela is currently third in the rally-era career kills per set at 2.84 behind Caitlin…