The William & Mary volleyball team wraps up the non-conference portion of its schedule this weekend, traveling down to Columbia, S.C., for the Gamecock Invitational.  The Tribe face Gardner-Webb on Friday night at 5:30 p.m., before facing South Carolina and Davidson on Saturday at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.  Live stats are available for all three matches through TribeAthletics.com.

Scouting the Tribe
W&M is 4-6 on the season after a tough 3-2 loss to VCU on Tuesday.  Freshman Casey Foote (Prospect, Ky.) leads the way for W&M and ranks second among CAA rookies with 2.95 kills per set, and classmate Autumn Brenner (McLean, Va.) is third overall in assists (9.43 per set) and fourth in aces (0.38 per set) in the league, best among freshmen.  On defense, junior Paige Humphrey (Oak Hill, Va.) is averaging 0.79 blocks per set, and classmate Sara Zumbach (Franklin, Tenn.) is seventh in the CAA with 4.04 digs per set.

Scouting the Bulldogs
Gardner-Webb is 7-3 on the year, and winners of five of its last six.  Taylor Lillard and Nicole Celarek are the top two hitters for the Bulldogs, averaging 2.62 and 2.33 kills per set, respectively.  On defense, Emma Milstead is outstanding at libero with 5.65 digs per set, and Hannah Driscoll controls the front line at 0.95 blocks per set.

Scouting the Gamecocks
South Carolina enters the weekend a perfect 9-0 on the season.  The Gamecocks are being led on offense by Mikayla Shields with 2.84 kills per set, and setter Aubrey Ezell is dishing out 0.59 aces per set.  On defense, Megan Kirkland has a team-best 3.16 digs per set, while Claire Edwards is tough at the net with 1.04 blocks per set.

Scouting the Wildcats

The Series
- The Tribe is 0-2 all-time against Gardner-Webb.  The two teams met last season on the first weekend of the year, a 3-2 barnburner.
- W&M is 4-0 all-time against South Carolina, meeting every season from 1988-91.  This will be the fourth meeting in Columbia, with the only other meeting a neutral-site match-up in Raleigh in 1991.
- The Tribe is also undefeated against Davidson, and has never dropped a set in the series.  The two teams first met in 1993 and 1994, followed by 2001 and 2004.

News and Notes
- On Tuesday against VCU, Zumbach made a career-high 34 saves.  That's tied for the sixth-most ever in a match at W&M, and the most since All-American Lindsey Pflugner '10 also had 34 in a match in 2009.  It was also the most digs in the CAA this season by a wide margin (seven).

- The match against VCU was also the Tribe's "Lace Up 4 Pediatric Cancer" fundraiser.  W&M well-surpassed its goal of $500 dollars, raising more than $800 on the night for the Go 4 the Goal Foundation.

- The Tribe's win in the Colonial Classic was its fifth home tournament title in the last decade.  In that span, W&M is 28-10 overall in home events.

- Foote was named the MVP of the Colonial Classic, after averaging 4.1 kills, 3.6 digs, and 4.5 points per set.  Brenner was also named to the all-tournament team, with a nigh-unfathomable 12.0 assists per set, as was Katie Primatic (Pittstown, N.J.), who hit .552 and averaged 0.75 blocks per set.

- Foote was named the all-tournament team at Belmont, after averaging 2.5 kills and 2.6 digs per set for the weekend.

- Sophomore Heather Pippus (Lake Oswego, Ore.) was named to the all-tournament team at Clemson on the opening weekend, after scoring 18 kills against both Wofford and High Point.

- The Tribe started the year with three-straight five-set matches for the first time ever.  It was only the seventh three-match stretch of its kind in school history, while the school record of four-straight five-set matches was set back in 1988.

- Brenner was named the CAA Rookie of the Week on Aug. 29, after piling up  132 assists at the Clemson Invitational.  That was more than five other CAA teams had total on the first weekend.

- Melissa Ferris is in her first season as W&M's head coach, after a very successful 18 years as an assistant coach in Division I.  Her most recent stop was at Rice, where she spent 12 years.  Ferris is the eighth head coach in school history.

- W&M earned a perfect 1000 score in the APR last year, led by the classroom heroics of senior Gabrielle Pe (Virginia Beach, Va.) and junior Maddie Sanford (Georgetown, Texas) who were both named to the W&M Provost's Award list (for having a GPA over 3.5).

- If Pe plays every scheduled match this season, she'll tie the Tribe's all-time record of 121 matches currently held by Jill Hannah '98.  She can hold the record outright if W&M makes the CAA Tournament for the fourth time in the last five seasons.