Head coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley’s team is up to No. 13 in this week’s AVCA poll, one spot behind Oregon, after Penn State handled its business against the Ducks 3-1 at Rec Hall on Friday. The win was part of a 2-0 weekend and a three-match win streak that has the Nittany Lions at 15-5 overall and tied for fourth in the Big Ten at 7-3.
Following the win over Oregon, Penn State traveled to Bloomington to down the Indiana Hoosiers in four sets, with superstar right side Kennedy Martin leading the way. The senior, in her second year at Penn State after transferring from Florida, leads the Big Ten with 69 kills in conference play and, this week, was named the AVCA National Player of the Week for the second time in her career.
Her first AVCA Player of the Week honor came last October en route to her second first-team AVCA All-American honors.
Kennedy Martin named AVCA National Player of the Week
Kennedy Martin of @PennStateVBall is the AVCA Division I WVB Player of the Week.
— AVCA (@AVCAVolleyball) October 27, 2026
Martin lit it up last week—averaging 5.75 kills per set and 6.56 points per set—to help Penn State earn key Big Ten wins over No. 10 Oregon and No. 18 Indiana.https://t.co/Z24ZsJlTd0#WeAreAVCA pic.twitter.com/Ja1XljdeU2
The three-time AVCA All-American was a semifinalist for the AVCA Division I Player of the Year award last season, setting program records for single-season points with 728, kills, points/set, and kills/set. Martin’s dominance has, unsurprisingly, carried over to this season.
Over the weekend, Martin averaged 5.75 kills/set and 6.56 points/set while hitting .465, a staggering mark against ranked opponents. Oregon has been especially stingy defensively, allowing opponents to hit .201 this year, good for No. 7 in the Big Ten, but behind Martin’s 25-kill outing on 51 swings with just three errors, the Nittany Lions hit .346 as a team.
Indiana, more of an offensively-minded outfit, ranking No. 15 in the Big Ten by opponent hitting percentage at .232, allowed the Nittany Lions to hit .376 at Wilkinson Hall in Bloomington. Martin needed just 35 swings to register 21 kills, with just three errors (.514).
It’s not just Martin, however, who has been leading the offensive explosion. Setter Alexis Stucky, who transferred from Florida a year after Martin, had 45 assists in back-to-back matches. Penn State is still No. 8 in the conference in hitting percentage at .265, with the No. 1 team in the country, Nebraska, leading at .332, but the efficiency has been trending in the right direction, and at a good time.
Penn State needs to capitalize on its final weekend homestand
The Nittany Lions have seven matches left in the 2026 regular season, but just three of those are at home, including the next two matches this weekend, hosting Ohio State on Thursday and No. 11 Purdue on Saturday for the senior night and White Out match.
That means Penn State will be on the road for four of its final five matches of the regular season, traveling to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maryland, and Illinois. None of those programs are currently ranked in the top 25, but it won’t be easy to win out with so much travel, so Penn State can’t drop either of its home matches this weekend.
The Big Ten standings are tightly bunched behind the Cornhuskers, and the way the schedule plays out, Penn State has a path to stay right in the mix. And the team’s best player, playing like it, certainly won’t hurt.
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