Penn State Women’s Volleyball Defeats LIU-Brooklyn, Moves on in NCAAs

Story posted December 8, 2013 in CommRadio, Sports by Ryan Stevens

The LIU-Brooklyn Blackbirds were by no means, strangers to high-pressure moments throughout the year. The Blackbirds (23-8) took a set from No. 5 nationally ranked Florida earlier in the season, as well as one set from Oklahoma, who’s also made the tournament field.

LIU gave everything they had, but eventually fell to the No. 2 ranked Penn State Nittany Lions in straight sets, 25-21, 25-21, 25-14, on Friday night.

Penn State head coach Russ Rose understands his team cannot afford a similar effort for their second-round matchup with Utah on Saturday night.

“They (LIU) do the things that they do well,” Rose said after the match. “We had a lot of examples of people not being ready to play and if we play like that tomorrow against Utah, we’ll probably be disappointed with the outcome.”

One Nittany Lion that was spot on from the beginning, was senior middle hitter Katie Slay. Slay finished with eight kills on the night, with five coming in the second set.

“I thought Katie did a nice job of hitting and blocking,” Rose said. “She’ll have to be better tomorrow.”

One of the reasons LIU caused a lot of problems in the first two sets was their ability to hang with the much taller front line of Penn State. The Blackbirds front line in the middle stacked up at 5’9’’ and 6’1’’ as opposed to 6’6’’ and 6’4’’, but still managed to put up a good effort.

Penn State found themselves down 11-9 in the first set, but the attacking efforts from sophomore outside hitter Megan Courtney and senior outside hitter Deja McClendon gave Penn State a grind-it-out 25-12 first set victory.

Much was the same in the second set, but Penn State never surrendered the lead, after gaining a 9-7 advantage from back-to-back attack errors from junior Annika Foit. However, Penn State never had a lead more than four throughout the set.

LIU ran out of gas in the third set, as both teams emptied their bench late. Four kills from senior Ariel Scott paced the Nittany Lions onslaught ending the LIU season.

One moment Rose noted afterwards was the service ace by senior and State College native Maggie Harding that ended the game. Harding has seen minutes sparingly throughout her entire career at Penn State.

“I was really happy that Maggie could come in as a senior and score an ace in an NCAA match,” Rose said.

“It was pretty fun and it’s just great to play at home,” Harding said.

For sixth year head coach Kyle Robinson, this was a great experience for a team he has a lot of confidence in can stack up with the best in the country.

“When you set out on this journey, you talk about playing the best,” Robinson said. “We had that opportunity today and we gave them a heck of a match. Are we sad we’re going home? Absolutely. We’re not going to hold our heads though.”

Ryan Stevens is a sophomore majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email rvs5276@psu.edu.

About the Contributors

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Ryan Stevens

Senior / Broadcast Journalism

Ryan is a senior from Bloomington, Illinois majoring in broadcast journalism with a minor in english.  He has been involved with numerous radio shows, play-by-plays, beat writes and producing various Penn State athletics events since his first days of being on campus in the fall of 2012 with ComRadio. Since the fall of 2013, Ryan has been involved with State College’s ESPN Radio 1450 as an assistant producer intern and high school football reporter.

During the summer of 2014, Ryan co-hosted Sports Central with Cory Giger streaming over Altoona, Pa. and State College Pa. markets. Ryan also assisted USA Basketball media coverage in New York for World Cup of Basketball exhibition games.

Ryan was the marketing & communications intern for USA Track & Field at the national office in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was the media contact for the 2015 USATF Hershey Youth Outdoor Championships as well as the 2015 National Junior Olympics.

Ryan is also a member of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism. He can be reached via email at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and following him on twitter @RyanAStevens.