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Sept. 12, 2015
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- A trio of career-high performances guided No. 1 Penn State women's volleyball (7-0) to a straight set (25-16, 25-14, 25-12) victory against Mississippi State (6-3) Saturday morning in the second match of the Golden Dome Invitational.
Penn State commanded the advantage in the blocking margin, out-blocking Mississippi State 12.0-1.0. Four Nittany Lions had at least four blocks in the win, led by a team-high seven from Washington. Weiskircher finished second on the team with a career-high five blocks.
Sophomore Ali Frantti led the offense with her third double digit kill performance of the season with 11 kills on .346 hitting, adding six digs. Senior Megan Courtney finished second on the team with nine kills and seven digs. Washington finished third on the squad with eight kills on a team-best .538 hitting percentage.
Freshman libero Keeton Holcomb logged her first career 20-dig performance, posting a team-high 20 digs. Junior Carley Muller also had a career-high outing with five digs and a team-high two aces.
PSU returns to action this evening, closing out the Golden Dome Invitational with a match against tournament host Notre Dame at 7 p.m. ET in Purcell Pavilion.
Penn State opened the match on a 5-1 run to take control of an early lead. Mississippi State quickly erased the advantage with four unanswered points, tying the score, 5-5. The Nittany Lions and the Bulldogs continued to trade points, keeping the score tied up, 7-7. Mississippi State pulled ahead with an ace and a kill, 9-7, but PSU came storming back with five unanswered points to take over a three-point advantage, 12-9.
The Bulldogs called a timeout looking to cut off the streak, but Penn State followed with a 3-1 strike to widen the advantage to five, 15-10. Mississippi State answered back with three consecutive kills to trim the deficit to two, 15-13. Penn State responded with a 5-2 stretch to build the lead back to five, 20-15, prompting the Bulldogs to call a timeout.
Mississippi State came out of the huddle with a kill, 20-16, but a pair of kills from Whitney and Courtney sparked a 5-0 run that secured a 25-16 win in the opening set for the Nittany Lions.
The Nittany Lions and the Bulldogs traded points early in the second set to keep the score close. With the score knotted, 4-4, Washington, Frantti, Courtney and Weiskircher put away four consecutive kills to vault PSU on top by four, 8-4. A Nittany Lion attack error broke up the streak, but PSU regrouped with a 5-2 run to make it 13-7, causing the Bulldogs to call a timeout.
Penn State continued to roll out of the break, using a 6-2 strike to extend the Nittany Lion lead to double figures, 19-9, prompting the Bulldogs to take another timeout. PSU did not let its advantage dip below nine points for the remainder of the frame, as Frantti capped off a 25-14 win in the second set with back-to-back kills.
Penn State and Mississippi State kept it close early in the third set. Trailing by one, 10-9, Courtney followed three consecutive Bulldog errors with a kill to pull Penn State ahead, 12-10, causing Mississippi State to call a timeout. Penn State came out of the break firing, using an 8-2 streak to stretch the lead to nine, 20-11, causing Mississippi State to use its final timeout of the match.
Muller sparked a 5-1 run out of the break with an ace to propel the Nittany Lions to a 25-12 win in the third set to complete the sweep. Weiskircher, Washington and Frantti also chipped in kills down the stretch.