Aug 30, 2013
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -
The No. 2 Penn State University women's volleyball team kicked off its 2013 campaign with an 3-0 (28-26, 25-21, 25-20) sweep, in an exhibition match against Dabrowa, a Polish professional team, on Friday, Aug. 30 in Rec Hall.
"I thought we played really hard and I thought that we had some pretty good passing. Micha (Hancock) did a nice job getting the ball to Katie (Slay) and Nia (Grant) in the middle, so those two were really key along with Deja (McClendon), who did an awful lot for us tonight too," head coach Russ Rose said.
The Nittany Lions trailed Dabrowa early in the opening set, before redshirt freshman Paulina Prieto Cerame put PSU on the board with the first kill of her collegiate career. From there, Dabrowa and Penn State continued to fight point-for-point until Prieto Cerame put down a block to knot the score at 8-8.
Neither team could pull away by more than one point for the remainder of the set until Preito Cerame connected on her sixth kill of the match to make it 24-23. Dabrowa stormed back though, using kills from Gonzaga Sassa Welissa and Alexsandra Liniarska to tie it at 26-all. Seniors Katie Slay and Deja McClendon combined for back-to-back kills to end the set, 28-26, in favor of the Nittany Lions.
Preito Cerame registered a team-high seven kills in the opening frame for Penn State.
Both PSU and Dabrowa continued to keep it close throughout the entire second set. Penn State managed to pull away late in the frame, 21-18, using a 3-1 spurt, helped out by a kill from senior Ariel Scott and an attacking error on Dabrowa's Zaroslinska Katarzyna.
McClendon and junior Nia Grant put down two consecutive kills to make it match point, before sophomore Kendall Pierce closed out the set with a service ace to put the Nittany Lions up 2-0 in the match.
With the third set tied at 5-5, the Lions used an 8-2 stretch to take control of a five-point advantage, 12-7. Slay rounded out the scoring streak with a pair of kills, before junior Micha Hancock registered an ace to increase the PSU lead to 13-7.
Building on the advantage, Penn State grew its lead as high as six points, 24-18, before Slay sealed the set and the match with one final kill to secure the 3-0 sweep.
Slay and McClendon both hit double-digits for the Lions, recording 13 and 12 kills, respectively. Prieto Cerame and Scott both tallied eight each, while junior Nia Grant posted six. Slay added a team-best six blocks, while junior Micha Hancock dished out 37 assists.
The Nittany Lions return to action tomorrow morning, officially opening the 2013 season in the Penn State Invitational with a pair of non-conference matchups against Syracuse (0-1) at 11 a.m. and No. 19 Louisville (1-0) at 7 p.m. Both single-game and season tickets are available for purchase by calling 1-800-NITTANY or by visiting the Athletics Ticket Office in the Bryce Jordan Center during normal business hours.
The Penn State women's volleyball 2013 season is presented by Rockvale Outlets.