STATE COLLEGE — No. 2 Penn State women’s volleyball beat No. 3 Nebraska to clinch the shared regular season Big Ten championship on Friday, Nov. 29.
In front of a sold out home crowd, the Nittany Lions showed why they have been top-five in the country all year, defeating No. 3 Nebraska, then No. 2, 3-1 in the final match of the season.
In the first set, Penn State jumped out early taking a 4-0 lead. The Nittany Lions ended up taking the first set 25-21 thanks to Caroline Jurevicius and Maggie Mendelson. Both players used to play for the Cornhuskers but showed no mercy recording five kills apiece in the first set against their former side.
Penn State fell in the second set 25-14 but bounced back with two consecutive wins scored 25-22 and 25-23 to defeat Nebraska.
Similar to the first set, Jurevicius led the way for the Nittany Lions in the final two sets. Hitting .625 the former Cornhusker had four kills in the third set. She followed this up with five more kills in the fourth.
Jurevicius led the team with 18 kills, which is also her career high. Jocelyn Nathan led the team in digs with nine.
Penn State led the battle in kills with 57, aces with three, assists with 56 and digs with 62. The only stat Nebraska led in was blocks with 16 compared to Penn State’s 10.
Following the 18th Big Ten championship in Penn State’s history, the team found out it would be the No. 3 seed overall in the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Tournament, as announced during the selection show on Sunday, Dec. 1.
Receiving a top four seed means hosting matches until the semifinals, a huge advantage.
Penn State will welcome Delaware State for the first round on Friday, Dec. 6 at 7:30 p.m. The last, and only, time the two teams met was in 2007. Penn State swept the Hornets in that meeting.
Some of the teams on Penn State’s side of the bracket to look out for down the road are No. 6 Creighton, No. 13 Texas, No. 17 Utah, No. 19 USC and No. 21 Florida State. Every seeded team in the top right of the bracket is currently in the top 25 or receiving votes for it.
