Team Notes

• Youngstown State won its season-opening tournament for the third straight year. Behind tournament MVP Brooklen Pe'a, YSU won the Penguin Classic on Aug. 30-31 at Beeghly Center by beating Saint Francis U, Bucknell and The Citadel. Alexia Byrnes and Aleah Hughes were also named to the all-tournament team.
• YSU went on to earn five wins at Beeghly Center, adding victories over Robert Morris and Eastern Illinois at the YSU Red & White Invitational on Sept. 20. The five home victories tied for the most at Beeghly Center since the 2000 squad won eight home matches.
• The Penguins tied their highest overall win total and Horizon League win total since 2015. Additionally, they had their best winning percentage in five years.
• YSU broke the school record for most digs in a four-set, rally-scoring match when it posted 101 at Cleveland State. The previous record was 100 versus Wright State in 2007.

All-Tournament Team Selections

• Week 1: Penguin Classic – Brooklen Pe'a (MVP), Aleah Hughes, Alexia Byrnes
• Week 2: Cornell Invitational – Alexia Byrnes
• Week 3: Towson Invitational – Aleah Hughes
• Week 4: YSU Red & White Invitational – Alexia Byrnes, Aleah Hughes

Career Records Update

• Margaux Thompson will enter her senior year ranking second in school history in career digs per set at 3.54. Her yearly average has gone up each season of her career – 3.15 in 2017, 3.56 in 2018 and 3.90 in 2019.
• Aleah Hughes finished her career ranking eighth in school history averaging 3.15 digs per set in her three-year career.
• Setter Alexia Byrnes finished her sophomore year ranking 11th in program history with 1,116 career assists. Additionally, her 7.39 assists per set is the seventh-best average for a Penguin over a career.
• Libbie Darling finished her second season ranking 14th in program history with 753 career assists.

Match Records Update

• Aleah Hughes set the school record for most attempts in a five-set match with 68 versus Northern Kentucky in the season finale. That broke Amy Hermann's old record of 66 against Cleveland State that had stood since 1998. Hughes had the most attempts regardless of match length since rally scoring began in 2001.
• Margaux Thompson tied the school record for most digs in a rally-scoring match when she had 34 against Kent State on Sept. 10.
• Brooklen Pe'a's 61 attempts versus Kent State on Sept. 10 tied for the fifth-most in a rally scoring match.

Academic Achievement

• Senior Erin Kalahar became the first YSU volleyball player since Jessica Fraley in 2007 to be named CoSIDA Academic All-District. Kalahar went on to earn her bachelor's degree in the fall.
• Kalahar and Aleah Hughes repeated as Academic All-Horizon League selections. They become the fifth and sixth players in program history to be two-time academic all-conference honorees.
• The Penguins posted an impressive GPA of 3.61 as team in the fall semester. Emily Emch, Aleah Hughes, Alexis Hughes, Erin Kalahar, Carla Relitz and Ashley Starzyk each had a 4.0 during the semester.

Individual Notes

• Alexia Byrnes became the 12th Penguin setter to reach 1,000 career assists in YSU's match at IUPUI on Oct. 9. She had 632 assists in 2019 after posting 484 as a redshirt freshman in 2018. Byrnes also set career highs with 1.28 kills per set, 8.10 assist per set and 2.83 digs per set in 2019.
• Aleah Hughes posted the best attack percentage of her career at .141. She was one point away from reaching 300 for the second consecutive season.
• Erin Kalahar set new career highs with 31 aces, 0.34 aces per set, 71 blocks, 0.77 blocks per set and 188.5 points. She had 21 more aces in 2019 than in her first three seasons combined.
• Brooklen Pe'a averaged the most kills per set by a YSU pin hitter since Lexi Egler in 2014. Pe'a posted a team-best 2.90 kills per set for the year, and she was even better with 3.00 kills per set against Horizon League opponents. Pe'a posted a .182 attack percentage, a big improvement from the .093 she hit as a freshman, and she upped her digs-per-set average to 2.43 from 0.96.
• Margaux Thompson averaged 3.90 digs per set in 2019, which was the eighth-best average in program history. Her 394 digs ranked 15th on the single-season list. She became the 17th player to reach 1,000 career digs in YSU's match at Oakland on Nov. 3.