SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Penn State rode a balanced attack to a sweep of California in the second national semifinal on Thursday night at Arco Arena, winning 3-0 (30-28, 30-25, 30-16) to advance to Saturday’s NCAA Div. I Women’s Volleyball National Championship match.
Nicole Fawcett (13), Megan Hodge (11) and Arielle Wilson (10) were all in double figures in kills for the Nittany Lions, and Wilson led all players with an astronomical .909 hitting percentage for the match. Sophomore setter Alisha Glass led all players with 41 assists while junior libero Roberta Holehouse had a match-high 14 digs.
Cal senior outside hitter Angie Pressey led all players with 15 kills and led her team in digs with 10 as she was the only player to notch a double-double – her 14th of the season. Pressey’s co-captain, Ellen Orchard, added six kills and hit .462 for the match.
Game one was hotly contested as no team led by more than four points. Penn State held that four-point edge early at 9-5 but the Golden Bears tied the game at 10, 14, 15, 16 and 17 before the Nittany Lions took the lead on a kill from Wilson on the slide play. Penn State appeared to have control as it increased the lead to 23-19 but the Bears made one final push to tie the game at 28 on a kill from sophomore outside hitter Hana Cutura. But a kill from Blair Brown gave the Nittany Lions game point and a Cutura attack error followed to give Penn State the win.
Cal (26-8) nearly erased a 14-7 deficit in game two climbing back to within 15-14 on back-to-back aces from Cutura but a pair of Golden Bear errors, and kills from Hodge and senior middle Christa Harmotto gave Penn State a five-point cushion that it rode to victory.
Penn State again jumped out to a 14-7 lead coming out of the break but there would be no Golden Bear comeback this time. Hodge notched four of her kills in the third game and Penn State held Cal to a -.062 hitting percentage in the third frame.
Penn State has now swept every opponent it has faced in this year’s NCAA Tournament. The Nittany Lions hit .347 while holding Cal to .121.
Penn State (33-2) will face top-seeded Stanford (32-2) at 6 p.m. on Saturday for the national championship. The Nittany Lions make their fifth appearance in the national championship match and first since 1999 when they won their lone title. One of Penn State’s lone two losses of the season came to Cardinal on Sept. 15 in a five-game thriller at the Yale Classic in New Haven, Conn.
Penn State and Stanford are the only two teams to have reached every NCAA Div. I Women’s Volleyball Tournament since its inception in 1981. Combined, the two have appeared in the final 16 times in 27 years and have faced each other twice. Stanford beat Penn State in the 1997 final in five games at Washington State, and the Nittany Lions returned the favor two years later sweeping the Cardinal in Hawaii.
