Nittany Lions Sweep St. Francis
The No. 7 Penn State Nittany Lions (9-1, 3-0 EIVA) continued their dominance at Rec Hall on Friday night as they took care of the St. Francis (PA) Red Flash (4-7, 1-2 EIVA) in three sets.
Winners of its last eight matches, Penn State picked up right where it left off from the very beginning. The Nittany Lions jumped out to an early 9-4 lead and maintained a comfortable advantage throughout the set, picking up an easy 25-15 victory.
Penn State held St. Francis to a .000 hitting percentage in the first frame after the Red Flash recorded eight kills and eight attack errors, and the Nittany Lions excelled offensively as well. Five Penn State players notched two or more kills in opening stanza, and senior Tom Comfort thinks that his team’s balanced offensive attack makes them difficult for opponents to deal with.
“Here at Penn State we’ve always had a go-to guy,” Comfort said after the match. “But to have everybody always hitting a high percentage, that just shows that whoever’s going to play us, they’re never going to key in on one guy.”
St. Francis did manage to recover and make things a little tougher on the Nittany Lions in the second set. With the score knotted at 6 in the early stages of the second game, a St. Francis service error and a Peter Russell kill gave Penn State an 8-6 lead.
The Nittany Lions would hang on to their advantage but could not pull away from the pesky Red Flash. St. Francis kept its deficit within three until a hitting error from junior Logan Patterson gave Penn State a 21-17 lead, forcing Red Flash head coach Mike Kumbaugh to call timeout.
With its backs against the wall, St. Francis responded with three straight points to pull within a point and force a Penn State timeout. However, the Nittany Lions were resilient, as an emphatic spike from freshman Matt Seifert ended the St. Francis run.
Seifert’s kill sparked Penn State to string together a 3-0 run of its own, and the Nittany Lions came away with a 25-21 second-set victory---much to the liking of head coach Mark Pavlik.
“I thought we started okay and kind of sputtered in the middle there with some hitting errors and serving errors,” Pavlik said about his team’s second set performance. “But when I took a timeout, the guys brought it immediately back into focus.”
The 10 minute halftime intermission did nothing to cool off the red-hot Nittany Lions. Behind the service of Tom Comfort, Penn State put together a 5-0 run to quickly jump out to a 6-1 advantage.
The Nittany Lions would extend their lead to 16-8, but a slew of Penn State errors brought the Red Flash back within four. Once again, though, it was Pavlik timeout that caused the momentum to rapidly change in the Nittany Lions' favor.
Following the timeout, Penn State answered the 4-0 St. Francis run with four straight kills---including two from Matt Seifert---to regain its eight-point lead. The Nittany Lions’ lead would eventually balloon to 10 before a kill from senior Nick Turko finished off the match, giving Penn State a 25-17 third-set win and its fifth sweep in six matches.
Seifert had the best match of his young career, recording 10 kills on just 13 swings. After the match, he attributed a lot of the credit to his chemistry with his setter.
“I think me and Taylor [Hammond] have just gotten to the point where he always knows where I am,” Seifert said. “It’s been really easy for us that way.”
In addition to Seifert’s 10 kills, Tom Comfort and Peter Russell each posted nine. On the St. Francis side, Logan Patterson paced his team with 11 kills, although it took him 33 swings to do so. Junior Colin Sherwin was much more efficient, notching nine kills on only 14 swings.
Penn State recorded a .455 hitting percentage in the match and held St. Francis to a .133 percentage. The Nittany Lions also outblocked the Red Flash dominated on the front court posting five more blocks than the in-state foe.
Penn State will look to cap off a perfect eight match homestand when it hosts No. 9 Ohio State on Saturday night. Saturday’s match will mark the second meeting between the two teams, with the Nittany Lions sweeping the Buckeyes when they met in Honolulu, Hawaii back on January 12.
Bradford Conners is a sophomore majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email btc5082@psu.edu
