Penn State women’s volleyball earns the No. 13 seed in its 40th straight NCAA Tournament
Even after having its final four matches of the season canceled due to COVID-19 protocols, Penn State women’s volleyball found itself in a familiar spot on Sunday — officially making the NCAA Tournament for the 40th consecutive year.
Since Stanford did not receive a bid this year to the 48-team tournament, Penn State is now the first and only program to have made all 40 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship events.
The No. 13-seed Nittany Lions posted a 9-5 overall record this season, and overcame adversity after finding themselves sitting with a 4-5 record after their two-set loss to Purdue on March 5.
The team went on to win its final five matches, and only lost one set in the process — the following evening in Penn State’s second game against the Boilermakers. After being down 1-0 against Purdue, the Nittany Lions went on to win that game, 3-1, and 14 consecutive sets to conclude the regular season.
Penn State swept Rutgers in a home series (3-0, 3-0) the next week, and replicated the same results the following weekend in an away series against Michigan State.
That’s when the troubles began, as its series scheduled against Wisconsin the following weekend was canceled and not rescheduled out of an abundance of caution. The same happened the following weekend in its scheduled matches against Nebraska.
But despite not having played in nearly a month, the Nittany Lions find themselves in a great position as the No. 13 overall seed, earning a first-round bye in the NCAA Tournament, after ESPNU released the 48-team field on Sunday.
Their first match will be at 10:30 p.m. April 15 against the winner of Rice and North Carolina A&T in the NCAA Second Round. The game will be streamed on ESPN3. All tournament games will be played in Omaha, Nebraska.
This means for the first time since 1989, Penn State won’t host its opening two rounds of the NCAA Tournament at Rec. Hall.
It played very disciplined this season and displayed a potent offense that compiled 711 kills to its opponents’ 617, and only made 241 errors compared to opponents’ 303. Junior Jonni Parker led the team with 165 kills while junior Kaitlyn Hord compiled 71.0 blocks to set the team’s defensive tone.
All five of the Nittany Lions’ losses this season in its conference-only schedule came against opponents who received a top-10 seed in the tournament — Minnesota received the No. 3 seed, Purdue received the No. 7 seed and Ohio State received the No. 9 seed.
The Nittany Lions will have a tough task ahead of them in the second round, as Rice compiled a 16-5 overall record and closed the season winning 13 of its final 14 matches. North Carolina A&T went 11-1 while securing two wins and the championship in the MEAC championship.