Penn State men’s volleyball wins season opener

It was the debut the Nittany Lions needed.

The Penn State men’s volleyball team won its opening match of the season, holding off No. 12 Southern California 25-22, 27-25, 29-27 Thursday night in the Pac-12/Big Ten Challenge at Rec Hall.

“I think we came out and played OK January volleyball,” coach Mark Pavlik said of a team that has been practicing less than a week.

Jalen Penrose’s 17 kills on .462 hitting, Chris Nugent’s 15 kills on .429 hitting, and Matt Callaway’s five blocks paced the No. 10 Nittany Lions. Taylor Hammond gave out 40 assists, and Royce Clemens had 11 digs in his college debut.

Jon Rivera’s 14 kills and Lucas Yoder’s 10 kills paced the Trojans, with Tommy Leonard picking up three blocks and Jack Yoder giving out 31 assists.

Defense played a big role for Penn State, with a 7-3.5 edge in blocks and a 30-24 advantage in digs.

“I think we did a good job of changing our defensive scheme,” Clemens said. “Blockers at the net did a great job taking away angles. They made my job, and the whole back line, a lot easier.”

The point of the match came midway through the first set, when Nugent had a swing blocked by the Trojans, but Clemens made a diving pancake save of the ball and the Lions managed to tip the ball back over the net. Callaway then lined up a solo stuff of Connor Inlow to earn the point.

The second set was a marathon, with USC fighting off three set points before Callaway and Nugent put up a block on the Trojans to wrap it up.

In the third frame, Penn State fought back from being down 20-16 to tie it at 23-23 paced by back-to-back Nugent kills. USC then had one set point and the Nittany Lions had three others before finally putting the match away.

“As a team we were still pretty confident,” Nugent said of the fourth-set deficit. “We didn’t let being down affect us at all. We knew what we had to do. We knew we had to get out of it and then do our own thing.”

Pavlik was glad to see his team get the key points at the end of each set.

“I liked the calm intensity we had out there,” Pavlik said. “I didn’t think we tried to do more than we were capable of. I didn’t think we tried to hit sharper angles, I didn’t think we tried to do something fancy. I just think we had the belief in what we’ve been doing and let that carry us through.”

It marked marked a disappointing start to the coaching debut for the Trojans’ Jeff Nygaard.

“I look at (Penn State) and I see some guys that have played a little bit more, had a little bit more experience,” Nygaard said. “When crunch time came, instead of having to think through it, process it and make it, they just knew how to make those decisions on the fly. They were just more seasoned as a team.”

Notes: In the first match of the day, UCLA rallied after dropping the first set to beat Ohio State 24-26, 25-22, 25-22, 25-22. Dylan Missry’s 12 kills led four Bruins in double figures, with Chambersburg’s Mitch Stahl adding 10 kills and six blocks. ... The Buckeyes and Trojans will meet at 5 p.m. Friday before the Bruins and Nittany Lions meet at 7:30. ... Penn State lost outside hitter Spencer Sauter midway through the second set when he got tangled under the net with a USC player and turned his ankle. He returned to the Penn State sideline in the third set on crutches. ... The Trojans had trouble just getting to town, unable to fly from Washington to State College, instead flying to Pittsburgh and taking a bus the rest of the way.

This story was originally published January 7, 2016 at 9:17 PM with the headline "Penn State men’s volleyball wins season opener."