Got 100! (Need Two More)

Gainesville, FL. December 12, 2009

Penn State’s consecutive match winning streak reached the century mark this afternoon, as the Nittany Lions dispatched the California Golden Bears, 25-18, 25-17, 25-22 in a steady, if not flashy, performance to move on the the Final Four next week. In their semi-final match, Penn State will face either Big Ten foe Michigan, which took them to five sets in Ann Arbor, or the Rainbow Wahine of Hawaii.

As usual, Penn State was led by Sr. OH Megan Hodge (14 kills, .429 hitting) and Sr. Setter Alisha Glass (whom the announcers mentioned as a solid candidate for NPOY), with Jr. Opp. Blair Brown (13 kills, .375 hitting — the announcers love Blair Brown), Jr. L. Alyssa D’Errico (5 service aces, including 3 in a row in the first set, when she helped Penn State run off 7 straight points), Jr. MH Arielle Wilson (5 kills, .625 hitting), and Jr. DS Cathy Quilico also turning in solid performances.

But our favorite moment was the service ace by Kelsey Ream. What a gutsy recovery she made from her surgery.

Here’s link to the write-up on NCAA.com

My favorite quotes from the article: Russ Rose: “I feel bad going up against Cal every year.“ and Arielle Wilson: “Our fans are incredible. They came to Florida and [go] wherever we‘re playing. It‘s amazing.”

Heres a link to Video Highlights of the match (there’s a list of videos in the right-hand side of the page; the Penn State-Cal match video was second from the top when this was posted).

Final match statistics are shown below:

Top Performers
Top Performers

Match Stats: Penn State

Match Stats – California