Penn State women’s volleyball bounces back from bad loss in a big way Friday night

Penn State women’s volleyball is no longer undefeated in Big Ten play. Last Saturday’s three-set loss at No. 7 Wisconsin dropped the Nittany Lions to 13-1 in conference play and 24-2 overall, but on Friday night at Rec Hall, Katie Schumacher-Cawley’s team bounced back with a 3-0 sweep of Illinois. 

Now at 14-1 in Big Ten play, Penn State is second behind undefeated Nebraska and still a game up on the Badgers in the loss column. With four matches remaining before the regular season finale at Rec Hall against the Cornhuskers, that match will could still be for the conference crown and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament as long as the Nittany Lions don’t drop another. So, it was crucial for the team to handle business at home on Friday night. 

True freshman setter Izzy Starck, just days after Schumacher-Cawley landed the No. 1 high school recruit for the second consecutive year, led a hyper-efficient offensive attack. The Nittany Lions hit .341 behind Starck’s 31 assists in a 3-0 sweep that went 25-23, 25-18, and 25-21. 

Camryn Hannah paced all Penn State hitters with 13 kills, but the story of the match was written from the service line. The Nittany Lions notched nine aces to Illinois’s two, and senior defensive specialist Quinn Menger finished with a career-high four. Jess Mruzik, recently named a semifinalist for AVCA National Player of the Year, reached 100 career aces with her second of the night. 

More importantly than Penn State’s offensive exploits, Schumacher-Cawley coaxed better defense out of her team after allowing Wisconsin to hit .465 last Saturday. The Fighting Illini, which fell to 17-8 (9-6), hit .222 and Penn State finished with 8.5 blocks. Raina Terry, though, Illinois’s former All-Big Ten fifth-year senior, hit a staggering .500 with 19 kills. 

Wisconsin was more balanced in its offensive attack than Illinois, but Penn State will need to prove it can slow down star outside hitters before its meeting with No. 1 Nebraska and its All-American outsides, Harper Murray and Merritt Beason.

Penn State will get another chance on Sunday afternoon in College Park, Maryland.