Nittany Lions bring home national title

From CDT staff reports

IRVINE, Calif. — Another trophy is coming back to State College.

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The Penn State men’s team matched the women’s title in December, taking down Pepperdine in four games

Saturday night in the National Collegiate Championships. The Nittany Lions bounced back from from a major collapse in the first game to oust the Waves 27-30, 33-31, 30-25, 30-23 at California-Irvine’s Bren Events Center.

Penn State (30-1) earned its second title, to go with their first earned in 1994, while denying Pepperdine (17-11) its sixth crown.

“It was probably more emotional than I thought,” head coach Mark Pavlik said. “Having (former Penn State coach Tom) Tait here for me was just a great way to pay him back for everything he’s done for alll of us over the course of the early years. ... It all culminated into an outpouring of emotion from those who have been with the program for so long.”

Tournament Most Valuable Player Matt Anderson carried the offensive load with 29 kills while hitting .451. The Nittany Lions also used their middle hitters heavily, with Max Lipsitz adding 17 kills on .500 hitting and Max Holt pounding down another dozen kills. Ryan Switzer rebounded from a rough first game to notch 10 kills, and the Nittany Lions finished the night hitting an impressive .407 as a team.

Luke Murray handed out 63 assists to go with 12 digs and Dennis Del Valle led the team with 16 digs. Pepperdine’s big gun, Paul Carroll, blasted 35 kills, though he hit .270 and his 15th error came on the game’s final point when his spike sailed long.

He also had eight digs, four blocks and three aces. J.D. Schleppenbach added 15 kills and Cory Riecks had nine kills as the Waves hit .273. Jonathan Winder posted 60 assists.

While Anderson was racking up his kills, Penn State helped give him openings by getting Lipsitz and Holt involved to take advantage of the Waves’ weaker middle hitters, Tyler Jaynes and Mark Hulse, who combined for four kills and nine blocks.

“We just had to remain calm and get back into our game plan of feeding the ball to the middles,” Murray said of the team’s attitude after losing Game 1. “That was pretty much our main point in our scouting report — run the middle down their throat.”

The Nittany Lions also built a huge block, finishing with a season-high 19 total blocks to Pepperdine’s 10.5.

Murray led with 11, including a pair of big solo stuffs, and Holt had nine and Lipsits added six.

“I pretty much knew they were going to try to go over top of me and feed their outsides,” Murray said. “I didn’t want to let them abuse me too much so I think I did my job.”

Penn State appeared on its way to an easy Game 1 win with an early 15-7 advantage, but Pepperdine rattled off 12 of the next 15 points and gained the lead for good 20-19 when Jaynes and Schleppenbach teamed to block Sweitzer. The pair put a roof on Sweitzer again on the game’s final point.

“I didn’t have to say much,” Pavlik said. “Max (Holt) and Matty came off the floor just livid. They said, ‘We had this match. We let that four-point run go.’”

Penn State also led 20-16 in the second game, only to see the lead disappear. After thwarting two Waves game points as well as having one of their own denied, Andreson flew in from the back row to tip the ball onto the top of the net and down for the 33-31 win.

The third game was just as tenuous at 26-25 before four straight points sealed it. The first was sparked by a diving Del Valle dig that Holt set perfectly to Anderson for a put-away. And sandwiched around a Lipsitz kill were a pair of triple blocks by Lipsitz, Murray and Anderson on Carroll.

“Also part of our scouting report was, if we’re going on a run, we know the ball’s going to Carroll,” Murray said. “He’s the big gun. He’s the guy they want to set to get out of a rut. We were able to key on him and slow him down pretty good. That was huge with us winning that third game.”