Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/79325
After falling short last year, PSU is eager to get back on top VARSITY VIEWS HUNGER GAMES BY RYAN JONES Blue White Contributor L isten long enough to Kristin Car- penter, and you almost start to feel bad for her teammates. It helps to listen just a little bit longer. A senior and returning co-captain on the Penn State women's volleyball team, Carpenter is brutal in calling out the failures of a squad that last year finished 25-8 and lost in the Sweet 16. It would've been a great season for most teams, but not at a program loaded with former prep All-Americans and coming off four consecutive national championships. Car- penter doesn't mind telling you all the ways her team fell short. What's sig- nificant is that she puts so much of the blame on herself. "I took it as, it was my fault this CARPENTER happened," she said. "That's how I looked at last season. And I refused to let another day, another season go by without doing something about it." Accountability was the operative word in a long off-season geared at getting the Nittany Lions back atop the national heap. Carpenter said that, in one sense, urgency kicked in the very night they were swept by UCLA in the regional semifinals – confirmation of a collective weakness that coach Russ Rose had identified months earlier. "He knew from the beginning – it's not his first rodeo," Carpenter said. "He pointed it out. We just didn't get it." What exactly did Rose, now on the eve of his 32nd year in charge, see as his team stumbled through a disap- pointing regular season? A lack of com- munication, a lack of leadership, and perhaps most important, a lack of ap- preciation for just how hard it is to win an NCAA title. Renowned for his subtle but blunt approach to motiva- tion, Rose did what he could, but as Carpenter pointed out, "He doesn't play. It's up to us to figure it out." With the 2011 season written off as a loss, the team's leaders – Carpenter, a 5-foot-6 defensive specialist, and re- serve Marika Racibarskas are the only returning seniors, while junior middle Katie Slay is also a co-captain – took to making sure they wouldn't see a sequel in 2012. For Carpenter, that meant reaching out to former team- mates for guidance. Among them: Alyssa D'Erico, a member of all four NCAA title teams and one of Carpen- ter's best friends; 2009 grad Christa Harmotto, a member of the 2012 Olympic team; and Melissa Walbridge, who was a senior during the first of that four-year title run. "How they de- livered it was different," Carpenter said, "but essentially, it led to the same message." The problems were subtle. Great friends off the court, the players weren't mindful enough of each other on it, didn't call each other out when neces- sary, didn't hold each other to the high standard set by their predecessors. The last of those might have been the most worrying. "Some of the girls didn't really know the alumni," Carpenter said. "Some of the girls who came and visited practice, they didn't know, 'Hey, they were a three-time All-American.' That's what our program is all about – a giant family. That should never hap- pen." Carpenter is certain it won't happen again. She said there's been a "180- degree turnaround" this off-season, adding that "everything is better than it was last year." The players' collective awareness of the roots of last season's failings are a big part of it. So, too, is the addition of assistant coach Steve Aird, a former defensive standout on the Penn State men's team and a mem- ber of Rose's coaching staff in 2007. Carpenter said the presence on the coaching staff of a voice that's at once fresh and familiar has already been a huge boon. What to watch this season? Carpenter expects big things up front from Slay and fellow junior middle Ariel Scott, and said the team's defense should be substantially improved from 2011. And across the roster, she said, that renewed sense of accountability is what's most promising. "Our expectations for each other are higher, and that makes a world of difference. The effort we've put in this off-season has been the best of my four years here. It looks like Penn State volleyball again." Former Lions win Olympic medals Gold didn't glitter for Penn State ath- letes at the 2012 Olympic Games, but five former Lions – all women – came home from London with precious medals hanging from their necks. Former Nittany Lion All-Americans Megan Hodge and Christa Harmotto helped the top-seeded U.S. women's volleyball team into the gold medal match, where they were routed, 3-1, by Brazil. Hodge might have been the team's most compelling story: An af- terthought in the Americans' first two matches, she dominated the net against China in pool play – then didn't see the court again in the quarter- or