Penn State women's volleyball beat South Florida to advance to the Second Round of the NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament. After a 3-1 hard fought battle, the Nittany Lions don't have much time to celebrate or rest. Rather, they have just over 24 hours to regroup, recover, and reset.
On Saturday, they face No. 1 Texas that just beat Florida A&M in three sets. Penn State is a much more challenging team from a much stronger conference for the Longhorns to face, but the Nittany Lions are prone to inconsistencies that Texas can take advantage of.
Here's everything you need to know about the Second Round match:
How to watch No. 8 Penn State vs. No. 1 Texas volleyball
- Date: Saturday, Dec. 6
- Time: 7:30 p.m. EST
- Venue: Gregory Gymnasium (Austin, Tex.)
- How to Watch and Stream: ESPN+
- Penn State record: 19-12
- Texas record: 24-3
Nittany Lions beat South Florida 3-1 in First Round of NCAA Tournament
Penn State reminded itself what it takes to win in the postseason. The main difference between the regular season that showed a lot of vulnerability in the Nittany Lions' team and the First Round of the tournament is that they are playing for every point and every set. They're no longer playing for a long-term hope to defend their national title. While that's part of the process, Penn State can't look too far ahead.
Setter Addie Lyon knows who her sparks are on offense to get the blue and white ramped up again. Against South Florida, she had a lot of options to choose from: right side hitter Kennedy Martin, outside hitters Emmi Sellman and Caroline Jurevicius, and middle blockers Maggie Mendelson and Jordan Hopp. In previous matches, Martin was almost a perfectly consistent hitter to target whether she was in the back row or front row. As for the others, it depended on the night. On Friday, that wasn't the case.
Martin led the team, unsurprisingly, with 22 kills, hitting a .341 on the match. She also had three service aces and four digs to go along with it. Sellman had nine kills, two aces, and one dig. Mendelson was just behind with eight kills and two digs. Jurevicius had six kills, and Hopp had two.
The four behind Martin were miles away from the all-around weapon, but that doesn't mean that their attacks weren't meaningful. All of their kills got Penn State back on track, especially against a South Florida team whose energy was always high. The Nittany Lions need all of their weapons to step up in the tournament at any given time, and the First Round was a good foot to start off on.
What Penn State also needs is to pull away in key moments and not allow its opponent to side-out. On Friday, that's where it struggled up until the end when the Nittany Lions finally rode the wave out, only allowing South Florida to score two points once they reached the red zone.
With the combination of Martin, a diverse offense, improving longevity of point streaks, and cleaning up defense, Penn State has a chance against the No. 1 team in its quadrant.
Who's next if Penn State advances to the Regional Semifinals?
The Nittany Lions are part of one of the toughest quadrants in the 2025 Tournament Bracket, and taking down No. 1 Texas is just one of many battles they have ahead if they plan on being the final team standing from that corner.
If Penn State defeats the Longhorns, it advances to the Regional Semifinals against No. 2 Indiana. The Hoosiers played on Day One of the tournament against Toledo to advance to the Second Round. They swept the Rockets then followed it up with a Day Two sweep over No. 5 Colorado.
In the regular season, the Nittany Lions fell in three sets to Indiana. Two of the three sets, one and three, were close with Penn State falling behind 25-22 and 25-23, respectively. The blue and white dropped the second set, 25-15. These second sets, win or lose in the first, repeatedly show Penn State's weaknesses. It's where defense falters while the attack or service errors pile up more.
If the Nittany Lions want to punch their ticket to the Regional Round, they have to take down the top two seeds to do so.