Young setter stepping into challenging role with Nittany Lion volleyball team

The Penn State women’s volleyball team has had a new leader of the offense this season, even if she wasn’t that new to the program.

Bryanna Weiskircher has been the quarterback, taking the reins in the first few games of the season after an apprenticeship with a redshirt season last fall.

Micha Hancock was the starter the previous four seasons, and Weiskircher spent her first year watching how hard coach Russ Rose can be.

“Coach is obviously really tough on setters,” she said in a session with the media Tuesday. “He expects the best from us and I think that being able to see how everything works, and being in the environment that I was in, it was a great opportunity to learn.”

Weiskircher and the No. 7-seeded Nittany Lions (28-5) are in the NCAA regional semifinals, facing unseeded Hawaii (28-1) at 8:30 p.m. in Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday.

The redshirt freshman has done well. Penn State enters the weekend fifth in the nation in hitting percentage at .297, and she is averaging 10.77 assists per set.

She won the starting job after a battle through the preseason and opening weekend with true freshman Wilma Rivera.

With three more seasons to go, Weiskircher looks to follow the footsteps of a number of other setters who held the job a long time, like Hancock, Alisha Glass, Sam Tortorello and Bonnie Bremner, among others. All of them had Rose in their ears pushing and prodding each day to make them better.

“It’s a tough position,” Rose said. “You’ve got to want to be in that situation, and you’ve got to be able to back it up. Bryanna’s had some really good matches this year, and some matches where she and I would agree that she didn’t play to the level that our expectations are or even her own.”

The trouble is finding consistency, which comes through repetition. While the offense has been pretty efficient, there are still the occasional sets that are too tight to the net or too far past the antenna.

The expectations for perfection on every one of those connections with her hitters can weigh heavily.

“They’re tough,” Weiskircher said. “But I wouldn’t expect anything less from him, and he doesn’t expect anything less from me.”

Very Big Ten

With six teams among the final 16 left in the tournament, the Big Ten is again the queen conference when it comes to volleyball. It doesn’t come as a surprise to Rose, and he’s not disappointed three of the six left are in the Des Moines regional. Minnesota and Illinois play in the night’s first semifinal.

The Golden Gophers are the No. 2 seed for the tournament and won the Big Ten title, while Rose picked the Illini as the preseason favorite. In another part of the bracket looms No. 6 Wisconsin, which Rose feels was the hottest team in the conference over the last month, and in yet another quarter of the draw are Ohio State and No. 4 Nebraska.

And even the three teams ousted put up a good fight, with Michigan falling in five sets to No. 14 UCLA, Michigan State losing in four to No. 5 Washington and Purdue falling to No. 3 Texas.

“Everybody lost to a 1- or 2-seed,” Rose said. “So all the teams are good. You have to put them somewhere.”

While three teams in their regional means they will be eliminating each other, as Rose pointed out, he also didn’t have to spend a lot of time on scouting opponents should his team win Friday.

Soccer success

The Rec Hall offices for Rose and his staff are just around the corner from the offices for Penn State soccer. The women’s program just won its first NCAA title, and the first for a Big Ten team, by beating Duke on Sunday 1-0.

“I was here when they started the soccer program with Patrick Farmer,” said Rose of the program’s first coach when it began just over two decades ago. “I’ve been here through all of the coaches. This was a great team, and Erica (Walsh) managed them really well.”

As Rose pointed out, his program’s run of seven titles since 1999, including the last two, has helped strengthen the conference as a whole, and he thinks the same will happen in soccer.

There also is a sense of pride by other Penn State athletes over the success in soccer. Sophomore outside hitter Ali Frantti was beaming for her friends Tuesday. She lives with three soccer players.

“From last year we were able to experience that,” Frantti said. “I know what it feels like. For them to experience that is just an unreal moment for them.”

This story was originally published December 8, 2015 at 9:37 PM with the headline "Young setter stepping into challenging role with Nittany Lion volleyball team."