In Penn State’s Halloween sweep of Ohio State (25-13, 25-16, 25-18), youth was served in more ways than one. 6-1 Fr. OH Ali Frantti led the Penn State attack with 14 kills (1 attack error for a .448 attack %), to go with five blocks (second on the team), three digs and two service aces. 6-3 Fr. MH Haleigh Washington’s 8 kills ranked second on the team (2 attack errors, .429 attack %), and Washington led the team with a new career high 9 blocks (1 solo). Not to be outdone, 5-8 Fr. DS Lainy Pierce put together a terrific service run in the first set, with eight straight points (starting with a service ace) to close out the set. Youth will be served indeed.
It wasn’t all about the freshmen. 6-2 Sr. MH Nia Grant and 6-4 RS Jr. RS/Opp Aiyana Whitney each posted 7 kills (hitting .462 and .333, respectively), and 5-11 Sr. setter Micha Hancock totaled 32 assists, guiding the Nittany Lions to a .321 team attack %. Hancock also posted four digs and three blocks.
On defense, Penn State held the Buckeyes to a .065 attack %. 5-6 Sr. libero Dominique Gonzalez registered 15 digs (tops in the match), fellow-senior 5-6 DS Lacey Fuller totaled 7 digs, and 6-2 Jr. OH Megan Courtney added 5 digs.
For the Buckeyes, 5-6 So. libero Valeria León led the team with 10 digs in two sets (she was replaced by 6-1 Fr. OH (and, apparently, libero) Luisa Schirmer in set 3. 6-2 So. MH Taylor Sandbothe and 6-3 Sr. OH Erin Sekinger tied for the team lead with 6 kills each. 6-2 Jr. Elizabeth Campbell (a transfer from Duke) and 6-2 Jr. OH Katie Mitchell added 5 kills each.
Post Match Q&A with Club Coach
We asked Club Coach, who has coached numerous successful club and collegiate women’s volleyball players, to give us his thoughts about Friday night’s Penn State – Ohio State women’s volleyball match.
DigNittany: Well, you called it (see Penn State vs. Ohio State: Prematch Q&A with Club Coach) – a 3-0 win by Penn State over Ohio State. What impressed you the most about Penn State tonight?
Club Coach: Actually, I really wasn’t surprised by the outcome. I think the biggest reason OSU didn’t compete with Penn State is that they don’t believe they can. Some programs circle a match on their schedule with a team of Penn State’s caliber as a match to get up for; others circle those matches as ones they can’t win.
DigNittany: Megan Courtney struggled on offense, with 1 kill and 3 attack errors in 5 attempts. Your thoughts?
Club Coach: There’s not much you can take away from 5 attempts. Had Courtney finished with 3 kills and no errors in 5 attempts, you certainly couldn’t have called it a great match. The bigger thing to take away is that given her attempts, they weren’t looking to her as a point scorer in this match.
DigNittany: If you were the coach, what would your message be to the Penn State team after this match?
Club Coach: The same message PSU gets every match: ” we’ve got a lot of areas in which we need to get better. We need to work harder in practice and get ready for the next match”
DigNittany: Thanks, as always.
Match Stats (Courtesy of GoPSUsports.com)
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Photo Credits
- Young Lions: by Jerzy Strzelecki. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.
- Lion Cubs: by Andy Mitchell from Glasgow, UK. This image, originally posted to Flickr, was reviewed on by the administrator or reviewer File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske), who confirmed that it was available on Flickr under the stated license on that date. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
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