How Penn State women’s volleyball beat Princeton to advance to the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament

One of the more unique qualities of the NCAA Tournament is that it can create new matchups and present teams with unfamiliar opponents in a sudden-death setting.

That was certainly the case on Friday, as Penn State looked out of sorts for most of its first meeting with Ivy League champion Princeton since 2010.

But the result was still inevitable.

It wasn’t exactly an impressive performance, but the Nittany Lions were ultimately able to pull away from a surprisingly upstart Princeton team, defeating the Tigers in straight sets (25-21, 25-20, 25-19) on Friday at Rec Hall.

With the win, Penn State improves to 25-5 on the season and will host Towson in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Saturday.

The Nittany Lions now have an 8-2 all-time record against Princeton, and are a perfect 22-0 in first round matches since the tournament expanded to 68 teams in 1998.

After the loss, Princeton will end its season at 17-8. The Tigers knocked off Yale in a one-game playoff to advance to the postseason, but their spirited effort away from home was not enough to knock off a Penn State team that had won 15 of its last 17 games heading into the contest.

“I thought we competed hard against a great opponent,” head coach Russ Rose said. “I don’t think we necessarily controlled (Princeton), but they did a good job of forcing us to adjust to things that they were throwing at us.”

The hosts were held in check throughout the night, most of which was due to slow starts in each set and an abundance of mental mistakes.

Penn State stumbled out of the gate, committing four errors in the first 10 points of the match and looking like a team that was unprepared for the moment.

This continued throughout the set, as the Nittany Lions found themselves in a dogfight against a team that they were heavily favored over.

But it was Penn State that finally broke free, finishing the opening frame on a 7-1 run — highlighted by a couple of kills each from sophomore middle blocker Serena Gray and sophomore right side Jonni Parker — to clinch the set and take a pivotal 1-0 lead.

“(Gray and Parker) are two players that are always good for us,” Gabby Blossom said. “Both of them are really good in the middle and they hold our blocks and give us some great opportunities to score. They were big reasons why they won tonight.”

For the match, Gray finished with 11 kills and hit for a percentage of .450, while Parker lead all scores with 14 kills and hit .312 on the night to pace Penn State’s offense.

After holding a comfortable lead throughout the second set, the Nittany Lions’ depth was on display in fending off a late Princeton rally.

Gray and Parker still made key plays for Penn State’s offense, but it was senior middle blocker Tori Gorrell and true freshman Lauren Clark that came through with kills to make the score 22-19 and 24-20, respectively, and effectively sealing the set in the process.

The third set went much like the opening frame.

Penn State once again would put itself in an early hole, surrendering six of the first seven points to start the set.

And once again, the Nittany Lions battled their way back into the match, evening the score at 13 before closing the match on a 12-6 run to shut the door on any chance of a Princeton rally.

“We can only control how we play, especially against good teams in this tournament,” Parker said. “Eliminating a lot of their runs was important for us, and we were able to prevent them from scoring multiple points in a row in that third set.”

Penn State’s flaws were certainly on display on Friday.

The Nittany Lions can be undisciplined at times, and Rose understands that his team can’t start slowly against the likes of Pittsburgh or Stanford in later rounds.

But for now, Penn State has survived and advanced to play Towson in less than 24 hours.

“I thought Towson represented itself well [against American],” Rose said. “They’ve won 29 matches, and there’s something to be said for how much success they’ve had. We’ll have to play better tomorrow and make sure that we’re ready to execute.”

This story was originally published December 6, 2019 at 11:54 PM.