May 2, 2015
By Tyler Feldman, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - They did it. Again.
For the 17th-straight season, No. 7 Penn State (20-9) captured the EIVA Championship. This time, the title came in the form of a straight sets (25-16, 25-17, 25-17) win over George Mason (15-13) in Rec Hall on Friday.
"Defense is leading to our offensive," head coach Mark Pavlik said. "And the offensive guys are working hard to finish those opportunities. It's something that if we can continue, we are going to force teams to play pretty physically against us."
With the victory, the Nittany Lions are headed once again to the NCAA tournament being held in Palo Alto, California. The Blue and White will find out its seeding Saturday, when the selection show begins at 1 p.m.
Thanks to the senior class and assistant head coach Colin McMillan's integrated defensive scheme, Penn State breezed by the Patriots. Aaron Russell finished with a match-high 15 kills on a .619 attacking percentage. He also added six digs and two service aces en route to being named the 2015 EIVA Championship Most Outstanding Player.
Just like in Wednesday's semifinal match against Princeton, tonight's bout ended with a Nick Goodell service ace. By taking advantage of George Mason sending two and three blockers to Russell, the redshirt senior finished with 11 kills and eight digs.
"Everyone looks to Ron for them to block, and then whenever one of us steps up, it makes it that much harder, but when everyone steps up, teams don't have a chance," Goodell said.
The third senior on the team, Connor Curry, kept the Nittany Lions in system all match long. Curry dug five swings, initiated brilliant first contacts and added three assists to pace the Blue and White.
"I've been lucky to have won this thing five times," Curry said. "I'm just happy to be going back to NCAAs, and that's our goal at the beginning of the season. We've set ourselves up in the right place, so we'll see what we can do in the next three matches."
However, it was two non-seniors who changed the complexity of the match in favor of the Nittany Lions. Sophomore Chris Nugent accumulated 14 kills on just 19 swings and redshirt junior setter Taylor Hammond compiled 41 assists.
"I thought our passing and serving was pretty good," Pavlik said. "Can't give enough credit to our offense. We took what they gave us, and we understood what they were giving us, and made it real tough on them to try to adapt to anything we did."
Russell echoed the words of his four-year head coach, but went even further by praising the play of his talented setter.
"A lot of credit to Taylor [Hammond]," Russell said. "He spread the offense really well tonight, and he gave us a lot of good opportunities.... We had a very offensively efficient game, and that is a good thing when you're going into a national championship tournament."
Now Penn State has a quick turnaround before leaving for Stanford on Sunday. Though according to Russell, the team's challenging non-conference schedule this season has prepared the team well for the NCAA Tournament.
"Through the non-conference play that we've had, we've experienced a lot of adversity," Russell said. "I think that just being able to learn and improve from that has brought us to where we are today.... We want to take it to these teams that are standing in our way of a national championship."