Penn State Sports Magazine
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WOMEN'S SOCCER Nittany Lions advance with win over Buffalo A dominant performance by Raquel Rodriguez and a pair of goals in under two minutes sealed Penn State's 4-1 vic- tory over Buffalo in the first round of the NCAA tournament Nov. 14 at Jeffrey Field. The Nittany Lions (18-3) took a lead they wouldn't relinquish in the 14th minute. Salina Williford collected a stray corner kick and passed it in to Ro- driguez. Rodriguez skirted around three defenders in the box and crossed the ball to Mallory Weber, who found the back of the net to give the Lions a 1-0 lead. Six minutes into the second half, Ro- driguez scored again. Her initial shot was blocked, but she collected her own rebound and finessed a shot into the bottom corner to give the Nittany Lions a 2-0 lead. Megan Schafer and Mallory Peterson also scored for Penn State. Britt Eckerstrom made two saves for her 18th win of the year. In 20 minutes on the pitch, Meghan Kaminski stopped one shot. The victory advanced Penn State to the second round. The Lions were set to play host to Connecticut on Nov. 21. WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL PSU routs Gophers to extend win streak Sixth-ranked Penn State pushed past Minnesota in straight sets (25-20, 25-12, 25-23) Nov. 15 in front of a season-high crowd of 5,569 at Rec Hall. The Nittany Lions improved to 26-3 overall and 14-2 in the Big Ten and ex- tended their winning streak to 10 matches. Heading into their visit to Michigan on Nov. 19, they hadn't lost in more than a month. The last nine of those victories were three-set decisions, as Penn State had won 29 consecutive sets. Redshirt junior Aiyana Whitney led the offense against the Gophers with a team-high 17 kills on .682 hitting, while freshman Haleigh Washington finished second with nine kills and a team-high six blocks. Senior Nia Grant closed out the evening ranked third on the team with eight kills on .462 hitting. Dominique Gonzalez continued her solid play from the back row, tallying a team-high 14 digs. Fellow senior Micha Hancock paced the team to a .315 hit- ting clip as the Nittany Lions limited the Gophers to a .080 team hitting effi- ciency. In addition to 31 assists, Hancock added seven digs, four kills, four aces and three blocks. With four aces, Han- cock improved her single-season aces mark to 91, which ties the all-time sin- gle-season record that she previously set in 2011. FIELD HOCKEY Lions fall to Orange in NCAA quarterfinal Penn State's season ended Nov. 16 at Syracuse with a 3-1 loss to the fourth- seeded Orange in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament. Senior Jenna Chris- mer scored the Lions' lone goal with just more than a minute left in the game. "I really thought Syracuse was out- standing today," head coach Charlene Morett-Curtiss said. "In every facet of the game, they just had great speed and connection. They're going to be a team that can vie for the championship." The Nittany Lions (16-6) tallied 13 shots and five corners in the game. Red- shirt senior Kylie Licata made a career- high 15 saves. ■ NOTEBOOK in which the Terrapins actually manage to raise the level of Big Ten play – followed by home losses to Michigan State and West Virginia. Suddenly, the weaknesses that seemed nonexistent for much of the season revealed themselves, none more so than a lack of depth on defense. Warm- ing was counting heavily on incoming freshman Dani Marks of Israel, who had played on professional youth sides in Eu- rope, to bolster his defense. But Marks injured his knee shortly after arriving on campus last summer, leaving Warming to scrabble together a three-man back line. A number of other injuries impacted the team's depth and contributed mightily to the team losing five of its final seven games before the NCAA tournament. For a team that had risen as high as No. 2 in some national polls, the tumble was dif- ficult to recover from. "There's always a psychological consequence to losing," Warming said. "Some people get hardened by it, some people tend to blame others, some tend to not feel good about them- selves. In any team, it's a mix of a lot of things. With us, I think some guys lost a little confidence." They got at least some of it back in their regular-season finale, a 1-0 victory over an Akron team that has been one of the nation's dominant programs in recent years. That win, in their third match in 10 days, came after back-to-back double- OT battles against Wisconsin (a 2-1 win) and Northwestern (a 2-1 loss). That's part of the reason, despite the Big Ten tourney loss to the Spartans, that Warming was feeling good about his team's postseason chances. It didn't hurt that the Lions would have more than a week off before they opened NCAA play. "I'm really excited about this period," he said. "For one, I felt like we needed some rest, and there's no other way to get it. And I was so proud of how the guys came back and absolutely ran their socks off against a very talented Akron team." It didn't hurt, he said, that given the long layoff, "I'm actually going to have longer to train the team now than I did in preseason." In treating this as the start of another new campaign, Warming has a precedent for real success. ■