Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/916653
WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Penn State falls to Nebraska in NCAA semifinal round
There was only one opponent that had
Penn State's number in 2017. That oppo-
nent was Nebraska, and the Cornhuskers
ended the Nittany Lions' season in the
NCAA semi;nals, prevailing in ;ve sets
Dec. 14 in Kansas City, Mo.
The top-seeded Lions won two of the
;rst three sets and pushed Nebraska to
match point in the fourth. But they
weren't able to get the kill that would
have propelled them into the champi-
onship match, and the Cornhuskers won
the back-and-forth set, 28-26. Nebraska
then took the decisive ;=h set, 15-11.
"I think it's just a shi= in momentum,
and it's something we talk about a lot, es-
pecially in our gym, being able to hold
onto momentum and not let it slip away,"
senior middle blocker Haleigh Washing-
ton said. "I think when you have those
moments, you feel that momentum shi=.
But in that ;=h set, we came out and had
an early lead. We were leading up until 7.
So it's not like the momentum was com-
pletely gone and they ran away with it in
the ;=h game. We were still battling. But
just couldn't hold onto that lead and
maintain it."
Nebraska had been the only team to de-
feat Penn State in the regular season,
sweeping the host Nittany Lions on Sept.
22 in the teams' Big Ten opener. The
Cornhuskers didn't do anything in the
NCAA tournament rematch that caught
Penn State o<-guard, senior outside hit-
ter Simone Lee said. "We scouted them
pretty well," she said. "I think it was just
execution on all our parts."
"What Nebraska does is they have good
service pressure," coach Russ Rose added.
"They're a good defensive team. Those
things kind of go hand in hand. They
don't make a lot of errors. We had a free
ball coming over the net for match point,
and two girls collided and fell. So then you
go into the ;=h game and you miss two
serves and get aced and have ;ve hitting
errors. That's why teams lose."
The Nittany Lions had earned their spot
in Kansas City with victories over
Howard (3-1), Pittsburgh (3-1), Missouri
(3-0) and Michigan State (3-0) in the
tournament's ;rst four rounds. All of
those matches took place in Rec Hall.
Six Penn State players won AVCA All-
America honors, as Washington and Lee
were named to the ;rst-team squad,
Kendall White earned second-team no-
tice, and Ali Frantti, Heidi Thelen and
Abby Detering won honorable mention
recognition. Washington was also named
winner of the Senior CLASS Award,
which goes to the top senior player in Di-
vision I.
The Nittany Lions ;nished their season
at 33-2. –MATT HERB
safety Jonathan Sutherland. Allen, in
particular, was e