VARSITY VIEWS
SIXTH
SENSE
A win over stubborn Wisconsin
lifts PSU to an exalted place
in collegiate volleyball history
|
D
on't hesitate. Don't flinch. Seize the moment. That was Russ
Rose's message to his team before it headed to Seattle in midDecember for the NCAA women's volleyball final four.
"I tell our players, if you have game point or it's at the end of
the match, I don't want to see you chipping or hitting a roll
shot," Rose said, glancing at Deja McClendon and Micha Hancock
during a news conference at Rec Hall that preceded the team's departure
for the Pacific Northwest. "I want to see you going up there and
hitting the ball hard. Because that's the sort of thing you remember
later in life, and I don't want it to be [the case] that every time I look at
you, I think of you as 'Down Ball Deja' or somebody who hit a roll shot
when the team needed you to take a big swing."
As it happened, McClendon received just such an opportunity against
Wisconsin in the national championship match on Dec. 21. With Penn
State leading the Badgers by a point, 24-23, in the fourth set, the
senior outside hitter leaped at a ball that had ricocheted off a block by
Katie Slay. If there'd been a radar gun tracking it, McClendon's shot
probably wouldn't have been the hardest of the evening, but it landed
where no one could get to it, thudding off the floor before anyone on
Wisconsin's side of the net had a chance to react. It completed a 3-1
victory and left the senior outside hitter feeling euphoric. Said McClendon, "I couldn't have ended it any better."
