Volleyball: Penn State Sweeps the Orange to Win Syracuse Tournament

Story by Kelsey Snider 
Photos by Aubrie Tolliver

SYRACUSE, N.Y – During warm-ups, there was a feeling in the gym that let you know Saturday night’s match against the Penn State Nittany Lions was a big one. Fans started filling the stands until there were no more seats left on the bleachers and had to start sitting on the floor.

There were fans from both teams cheering as loud as they could. The Women’s Building felt alive and energetic.

Those cheering for the visitors went home happy. But the Orange faithful left with a bit of optimism.

Nittany Lions too strong

Saturday night’s match was the last match of the Syracuse Tournament. Coming off its first win against Siena earlier on Saturday, the Orange seemed ready to play Penn State, who already had beaten Siena and Hofstra.

The Nittany Lions are a known powerhouse in the volleyball world. From 2007-2010, the Nittany Lions consecutively won the NCAA D-1 National Championship. They lost that title in 2011 (NCAA Regional Semifinal) and 2012 (NCAA Final Four), but regained the championship title in 2013 and 2014. While they'd lost three times this season, each time it was to another Top 20 team - North Carolina, Colorado and Stanford.

The upset the Orange was looking for did not happen as the team lost to the Nittany Lions, who are ranked 10^th in RPI this year (25-22, 25-17, 25-12).

Set one:

 

The Orange women came out strong and ready to fight. They kept neck and neck with the Nittany Lions the entire set. Syracuse was passing the best it had all tournament and could run a successful offense keeping Penn State on their toes. The Orange’s defense was dialed in and digging up all the hard driven hits from Penn State. 

Blocking has been a key strength to this year’s Syracuse team and it showed in this set and the entire match with the Orange out blocking the Nittany Lions 10 blocks to 8. 

Set two:

Coming into set two the Orange players still had high hopes. You could tell they were pleased with their performance in set one.

However, as it moved into the middle of the set, the Orange players' passing started to break down, which kept them out of system and hitting against Penn States’ solid double block. Syracuse made more unforced errors and took weaker swings trying to hit around a big block, which ultimately hurt the Orange. The Orange were out hit by the Nittany Lions .182 to -.056.

Syracuse depended on it’s good blocking and defense to stay in the set as long as possible, but Penn State pulled away.

Set three:

Going into set three, you knew Penn State was carrying the momentum of the game as they came out with an 11-6 start. The Nittany Lions racked up 15 kills with only four errors making their hitting percentage .367. The Orange women, however, didn’t come out as strong as they had in the first two sets.

The Nittany Lions had two long point runs in the set. Penn State had a six point run towards the beginning of the set going from 9-6 to 15-6, and a four point run towards the end of the set going from 19-10 to 23-10. After that, it was hard for the Orange to come back.

Syracuse’s passing continued to struggle in the third set keeping them out of system. The Orange hit .000, while the Nittany Lions hit .367.

Even with the continued strong blocking and defense by the Orange, it was nowhere near enough to pull out a set win as the Nittany Lions completed the sweep with their biggest margin of the night.

With that win, the Nittany Lions won the tournament. Hofstra took second, Syracuse came in third, and Siena took fourth.

Going into conference:

Head coach Leonid Yelin said his team stepped up for this match, and he hopes that his team can carry this feeling going into conference play.

“We’re going to find out the next match, every match we’re going to play from now we will learn about ourselves,” Yelin said.

Next week the Orange will head to Cedar Falls, Iowa to play in the UNI Tournament and will be back in the Women’s Building on Friday, September 23^rd to play the first conference match of the season against Boston College.