No. 19 Penn State women's volleyball sought its signature win of the 2025 season, but came up short against top ranked opponents and Big Ten foes. Friday night was a complete change of script that put the Nittany Lions (9-6, 3-2 Big Ten) back on the right track.
To no one's surprise, right side hitter Kennedy Martin lead her team to a 3-0 sweep and upset over No. 7 Wisconsin.
Martin had 23 kills and just five errors, hitting a .474 percent average with a .605 kill percentage. She also had two service aces, eight digs, and three blocks. In total, Martin was responsible for 26.5 of the points Penn State scored against the Badgers (11-2, 4-1 Big Ten). That's over double of the next point-scoring leader, middle blocker Maggie Mendelson with 11.
Martin's star power as an attacker was never questioned. Like every other match in 2025 so far, she was a weapon all around the court whether she was in the back row, front row, outside, or right side.
The difference between her performance on Friday from the rest of the season was the fact that she was nearly unstoppable. Five errors in 38 attempts is nothing but impressive as the seven-ranked team in the country had no answer for Martin's attack.
What setter Addie Lyon accomplished now roughly one month into her starting role was spreading the offense around.
Head coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley said getting the middle blockers more involved in the offense was critical, and Penn State did just that.
Mendelson and Jordan Hopp were essential at that position. Though a smaller sample size, Hopp went had five attempts and scored on three of them. She didn't tally one error against Wisconsin. She and Mendelson connected with Lyon on the slide attack more on Friday and had the most success on that play compared to the rest of the season.
On the outside, it was Caroline Jurevicius that found her footing again on the court. Jurevicius did not play at all in the previous match against Maryland that the Nittany Lions won 3-2, but she came out with the fire, drive, and aggression Penn State needed to get going early in the match.
Jurevicius was smart, using and testing the block. If she went up and was shutdown, Lyon put her outside hitter right back into action. Even when her line drive attack veered outside the line, Jurevicius didn't back down from the challenge and went straight up again with purpose.
She had seven kills and five errors on 18 attacks, totaling a .389 kill percentage and leading the outside hitter group as Emmi Sellman couldn't find her rhythm.
In the back row, Jurevicius tended to struggle more in previous matches. Between her lacking defense and attacks eaten up by blocks, Schumacher-Cawley rotated her out of the lineup every now and then to find the right fit.
Jurevicius didn't let her defensive play get the best of her on Friday.
Though she didn't log any digs, her serve-receive did not cost the Nittany Lions any points. Penn State also didn't throw a fourth defender in the back row on serve-receive to assist with Jurevicius.
Back row defense wasn't the only improvement Penn State made.
Up at the net, blocking was a clear focus of the blue and white's game plan. The Nittany Lions had the worst blocking percentage in the Big Ten and immediately turned around on Friday, eating up attacks and putting a hard stop to a young Badgers team. Seven blocks were tallied and came at crucial times, killing a lot of confidence Wisconsin had up at the net.
Even though the Badgers had one additional block against Penn State, the Nittany Lions had more juice all around the court from a reactive back row response to a spread-out offensive attack.
Wisconsin was almost entirely backed into a corner with freshman Madison Quest finding the ground for her team. Quest had 10 kills and two errors on 19 attacks. She was the only hitter in the red and white that had a kill percentage over .500. No Badgers had an overall hitting percentage to hit or exceed that mark.
With this upset, Penn State gained crucial momentum to overcome its identity crisis from earlier in the season and put up a huge Big Ten performance. It now holds a winning record in the conference and delivered Wisconsin its first loss in the Big Ten as well.