Penn St., Louisville to vie for NCAA volleyball title

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Penn State’s girls’s volleyball staff received a historic nationwide semifinal match Thursday to arrange much more historical past Sunday: For the primary time because the NCAA match for the game started in 1981, a lady will win the title as head coach.

That is assured, as each groups in Sunday’s closing (3 p.m. ET, ABC) are coached by girls. Penn State is led by Katie Schumacher-Cawley, whereas its opponent within the championship spherical, Louisville, is led by Dani Busboom Kelly. Each girls received NCAA titles as gamers: Schumacher-Cawley with Penn State in 1999 and Busboom Kelly with Nebraska in 2006.

“I believe we have heard that fairly a bit: the primary time a lady this or that,” Schumacher-Cawley mentioned. “However I am excited for this staff. I believe Dani’s an distinctive coach, and I am excited we each get to compete at this stage.”

It has been an emotional yr for the Nittany Lions, with Schumacher-Cawley teaching regardless of being identified with breast most cancers in September. The Nittany Lions say they’ve been impressed by her.

Penn State will go for this system’s eighth nationwide title — seven got here underneath former coach Russ Rose, who’s retired — and Louisville will go for its first. A Cardinals victory would additionally mark the ACC’s first title.

Nebraska coach John Prepare dinner, regardless of his disappointment in not making the ultimate, known as it a “silver lining” that both Busboom Kelly or Schumacher-Cawley will win a title as head coach. Prepare dinner coached Busboom Kelly as a participant, and he or she was his assistant at Nebraska earlier than taking the Louisville job in 2017. She has made the NCAA match each season with the Cardinals, and this shall be her second NCAA closing.

“There’s two nice tales for you guys to put in writing about,” Prepare dinner mentioned. “Girls are powerful, and people two are … I imply have a look at them as gamers. They had been each nice gamers.”

It appeared as if Busboom Kelly, whose Cardinals received the primary semifinal 3-1 over Pitt, would play her alma matter within the closing, as Nebraska took a 2-0 lead over the Nittany Lions in Thursday’s second match.

However Penn State staged an epic rally, turning into simply the sixth staff to get a reverse sweep — profitable the final three units after dropping the primary two — within the closing 4. The Nittany Lions are the one program to do it twice; in addition they received a reverse sweep to win the championship match over Texas in 2009.

Nebraska was the final staff to do it, in opposition to Illinois within the 2018 semifinals. However Thursday, the surprised Huskers misplaced simply their second NCAA match match in any spherical after profitable the primary two units. They’re now 104-2 in that scenario.

The Penn State-Nebraska match completed after midnight, ending with the Nittany Lions profitable the fifth set 15-13. Jess Mruzik led Penn State with 26 kills, and Prepare dinner known as it top-of-the-line performances he has seen from an outdoor hitter.

Within the evening’s opening match, Louisville delighted the gang on the KFC Yum Heart in downtown Louisville. The Cardinals performed with the stress of desperately eager to make it to the ultimate 4 of their house metropolis. Now, the Cardinals have made all of it the way in which to the final match of the season.

The Panthers had defeated the Cardinals twice in ACC play within the common season, however Louisville received the match that mattered most.

“That stress is suffocating, and there have been moments on this season once we had been suffocated,” Busboom Kelly mentioned of the Cardinals’ want to get to the ultimate 4. “However this staff actually rose above that, and we needed to put numerous work in, and numerous trustworthy conversations about what it was going to take to beat that.”

Then on Thursday, the Cardinals needed to overcome a number of different issues: the Panthers profitable the primary set, trailing Pitt early within the second set, going through 4 set factors within the third set and dropping senior standout Anna DeBeer to an ankle damage in the beginning of the fourth set.

Louisville prevailed over all of it, leaving Pitt to cope with a fourth consecutive season ending within the nationwide semifinals. Pitt additionally misplaced to Louisville within the nationwide semis in 2022. The Panthers’ solely loss this season earlier than Thursday was 3-2 at SMU in October. Olivia Babcock had 33 kills to guide Pitt, which completed the season 33-2.

“We’re hurting,” Pitt coach Dan Fisher mentioned. “This is without doubt one of the harder losses of my profession. It actually looks like a missed alternative.”

The Panthers and Cardinals have change into the ACC’s strongest applications lately, though Stanford and Cal becoming a member of the league this yr introduced numerous volleyball status. Stanford has received a report 9 NCAA titles, and Cal has made it to the ultimate 4.

Pitt received the regular-season matches in opposition to Louisville 3-2 in Pittsburgh on Oct. 25 and 3-1 in Louisville on Nov. 27. The Cardinals had been the fourth of the No. 1 seeds — behind Pitt, Nebraska and Penn State — and had been practically bounced within the second spherical by Northern Iowa in one of the intense matches of the NCAA match. However Louisville prevailed over UNI 22-20 within the fifth set, which featured 9 match factors.

Louisville swept Purdue and beat Stanford 3-1 to make its third journey to the ultimate 4. On Thursday, the Cardinals had been led by DeBeer, Charitie Luper and Sofia Maldonado Diaz every getting 14 kills.

When DeBeer went out after injuring her ankle with the Cardinals up 2-0 within the fourth set, freshman Payton Petersen got here in and had two kills and 4 essential digs. Petersen’s mom, Bobbi, coaches Northern Iowa and her twin sister, Jadyn, performs for UNI, so it had already been an emotional match for Payton.

“It simply felt bizarre,” Petersen mentioned of going through her mother and sister in an NCAA match match, including that Northern Iowa pushing Louisville so arduous ended up serving to the Cardinals enhance their play for the remainder of the match.

When DeBeer initially went down Thursday, Petersen figured she would be capable to shake it off and return. When it grew to become clear she would not be capable to do this, Petersen mentioned, “I wished to do that for her. She’s meant a lot to me.”

As for DeBeer, Busboom Kelly mentioned in an interview on the ESPN broadcast proper after the match that the skin hitter can be again for Sunday’s closing. However within the postmatch information convention, she tempered that.

“If there’s any inkling she will be able to play, she’s the kind of child that is going to get on the market and play,” Busboom Kelly mentioned of DeBeer. “However we can’t know extra till tomorrow.”