Red Storm to Take on Three Schools at Cornell Invitational

The Red Storm volleyball team will look to continue its perfect start to the 2018 campaign at the Cornell Invitational on Friday and Saturday.

St. John's (4-0) will take on Siena on Friday evening at 5 p.m. before its matchup with Buffalo on Saturday at 1 p.m. The Johnnies will close out play against host-school Cornell at 7 p.m. Saturday evening. All of the Red Storm matches can be seen live on ESPN+ with a paid subscription.

Last weekend, the Johnnies defended their Jack Kaiser Classic title, winning the event for the third-consecutive season. The Red Storm went 4-0 in the two-day event opening up the tournament with a straight-set victory over Manhattan. St. John's hit a clip of .500 as a team and committed only two errors in the sweep. The Johnnies then battled against Central Connecticut in the nightcap on Friday recovering from being down two sets behind a match-high 23 kills from Rachele Rastelli. The freshman posted two double-doubles and was named to the All-Tournament Team in her first collegiate matches. The Parma, Italy, native also earned conference honors as the BIG EAST Freshman of the Week behind her 61 kills in four contests.

Saturday morning saw the Red Storm take down Fordham in four sets. Lexie Lobdell set a career high in kills with 13 in the match and was the second of three Johnnies to be named to the All-Tournament Team. Lobdell then tied that mark in the next set against Eastern Michigan. St. John's took down the Eagles in five sets. Erica Di Maulo set her season high with 51 assists and was named the Tournament MVP for the third consecutive season. The junior setter delivered assist number 2,500 during the two-day tournament.

First-year head coach Vilis Ozols is still looking for his first victory at Siena (0-3). The Saints competed at the Baltimore Bash last weekend, dropping matches against Loyola (MD), Towson, and Radford. Sophomore Brooke Rogers landed on the Baltimore Bash All-Tournament Team and leads the Saints with a hitting percentage of .440. The middle blocker posted 13 kills in the three matches. Siena went 7-22 last season but returns the 2017 team leader in kills, Dakota Jackson. The sophomore outside hitter was named to the All-MAAC Rookie Team after posting 251 kills last year. This year's team features 10 underclassmen, five of whom started at least two of Siena's first three matches in 2018. The current team leaders in kills, assists, digs, and total blocks all come from the freshmen and sophomore classes. The Johnnies own a 10-2 all-time record against the Saints and have won 10-straight matches against Siena, having only dropped three sets during that stretch.

Like St. John's, Buffalo (3-0) is also entering the weekend undefeated with a tournament title. The Bulls won every match as the host school in the Blue and White Classic taking down Niagara, Seton Hall, and North Dakota State. Buffalo was picked to finish third in the East Division of the MAC in 2018. The Bulls also had one player selected to the Preseason East All-MAC Team in sophomore Andrea Mitrovic. The team had its first winning season since 2014 last year going 15-13 finishing fourth in the MAC East. Blair Brown Lipsitz enters her fourth season as head coach after leading Buffalo to an 8-8 conference record. That marked the first time since joining the MAC the team finished with a record of .500 or better in conference play. Junior Polina Prokudina led the Bulls with 48 points in three matches over the weekend. She ranks second on the team in kills (38), digs (30), and service aces (4). This will be the sixth all-time meeting between St. John's and Buffalo. The Johnnies holds a 3-2 series lead over the Bulls, despite the Red Storm losing the last two contests between the schools.

Cornell's Trudy Vande Berg enters her fourth season at the helm of the Big Red. She led the team to its highest conference finish since 2006 last year with 8-6 record in the Ivy League. Cornell is the only team in this invitational not to have played a match in 2018. The team finished 12-11 overall in 2017, including a win over the Red Storm in last year's edition of the Cornell Invitational. Cornell returns Samanta Arenas, who posted 223 kills for the Big Red last season to lead all returners. The junior outside hitter also posted the third-most service aces for the team with 17. Digs were a strength of the Big Red a year ago as the team led the Ivy League with 1,560, 100 more than Princeton in second. Despite losing the match last year, the Red Storm still holds a 3-1 all-time lead over the Big Red.

Red Storm to Take on Three Schools at Cornell Invitational

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Players Mentioned

Erica Di Maulo

Lexie Lobdell

Rachele Rastelli

St. John's University Athletics