Is Penn State Beatable?

It wasn't until the third set against the Texas Longhorns that I was sure the Nittany Lions were indeed human. Six-five Blair Brown powered down two kills in the first minutes of the first set and her Penn State teammates took that momentum and ran with it. By the second timeout, the score was 11 to 1, Penn State.

Texas came onto the court after the second timeout looking refocused and certainly stepped up their game, but the Penn players simply left them no room for error. So while Juliann Faucette had more kills than anyone else in the match (14), she couldn't get her physical and scrappy team to overcome Penn State's methodical, organized, precise volleyball.

Not to mention the height advantage the Penn players have over anyone else in the tournament. Katie Slay is 6'6", Blair Brown is 6'5" and there are several women at 6'3" an 6'4". Penn State freshman Deja McClendon, arguably the player of the night, looked short in comparison to these teammates, but it didn't stop her from going 11 for 15 for an unprecedented .733 pct!

In the third set, Texas managed to take the lead several times, and the Nittany Lions did make a few human errors, but it wasn't enough. Penn State took the series 3-0.

Penn's cool, calm and collected demeanor carried over to the press conference, in which McClendon, setter Kristin Carpenter, Alyssa D'Errico and Blair Brown refused to talk much about the excitement of their team making a fourth Finals appearance. 

"I ate my Wheaties this morning...it was nothing special really," Carpenter quipped.

"We know Texas is a physical team, so our goal was to not let them get points in bunches, but to stop them at one point," added D'Errico.

"This is the reason I came to Penn," said McClendon. "We came here to win and we have to work hard."

When asked why she seemed to get such a kick out of her now-signature move of faking a soft touch just until the last split second and switching to a slam over the net, the 5-foot-6-inch Carpenter laughed, "You know, being really short, it's fun to be able to contribute!" Her move is called the "setter-dump" by the way.

"If you listen to these guys, they're nuts you know," said straight-faced Coach Russ Rose, referring to his players. "I mean there are a lot of challenges here. But seriously, great players do it every night, so we have to do that."

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