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Sept. 10, 2016
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Led by a 20-kill performance from junior Simone Lee, No. 17 Penn State women's volleyball (4-3) took down Hofstra (6-3) in four sets (25-21, 22-25, 25-12, 25-11) Saturday afternoon in the second match of the Syracuse Classic.
Lee powered the Nittany Lion offense with 21 kills, marking her second 20-kill outing of the season. She added four digs, three blocks and tied for first on the team with two aces.
Junior Haleigh Washington finished second on the team with 11 kills on .529 hitting, adding two blocks.
Redshirt freshman Tori Gorrell led the Nittany Lions once again at the net, tallying eight total blocks to go along with seven kills. Junior Heidi Thelen finished second on the team with five total blocks.
Junior Abby Detering paced the team to a .336 hitting percentage, dishing out 41 assists to go along with four blocks and a team-high 10 digs for her first double-double of the season.
Trailing by one, 2-1, a pair of Hofstra errors opened up a 4-0 run that lifted the Nittany Lions ahead by three, 5-2, causing Hofstra to call an early timeout.
The Pride came out of the break with a kill, but the Nittany Lions regrouped with a 7-0 run to take over a nine-point lead, 12-3. Hofstra followed with a kill, 12-4, but Penn State answered with a 3-1 strike in to remain ahead, 15-5. The Pride came storming back, using a 4-0 strike to make it 15-9, causing the Nittany Lions to call a timeout.
Penn State came out of the break with two kills from Washington and Lee and an ace from junior Lainy Pierce to rebuild the advantage to nine, 18-9. With the Nittany Lions unable to sustain the momentum, Hofstra responded with a 9-2 scoring streak to narrow the Penn State lead to two, 20-18.
Gorrell and Lee cut off the momentum with consecutive kills to lift Penn State ahead, 22-18. Hofstra made one final attempt to mount a comeback with back-to-back kills, cutting the deficit to two again, 22-20. A kill from Gorrell and a Hofstra attack error made it set point, 24-20. Hofstra held off one attempt before a kill from Thelen secured a 25-21 win in the first set.
Penn State and Hofstra battled point-for-point throughout the first half of the second set, tying the score 11 times. With the score locked, 15-15, Hofstra used back-to-back kills for a two-point advantage, 17-15, causing the Nittany Lions to call a timeout.
The Nittany Lions struggled to regroup out of the break as Hofstra used a 4-2 stretch to widen the advantage to three, 21-18, causing PSU to call another timeout. Penn State came out of the break with back-to-back kills from Lee and Gorrell before a Hofstra attack error tied the score, 21-21. Penn State could not shift the momentum as the Pride responded with a 3-1 spurt to arrive at set point, 24-22. One more Hofstra killed gave the Pride a 25-22 win in the second set to tie the match, 1-1.
Penn State got out to a fast start in the third set, using a 6-2 run to construct an early lead, prompting Hofstra to call a timeout. Penn State continued to roll out of the break, using a 6-1 streak, capped off by kills from Lee to widen the advantage to as many as nine, 12-3. The Pride looked to break up the momentum with a kill, 12-4, but the Nittany Lions answered back with a 6-4 stretch to send the advantage into double figures, 18-8, causing Hofstra to use its final timeout.
A block from Washington and Detering out of the timeout sparked another 6-2 scoring streak that lifted the Nittany Lions to set point, 24-10. Hofstra held off two attempts before the Pride served into the net to give Penn State a 25-12 win in the third set to go up 2-1 in the match.
Leading by two in the fourth set, 8-6, Washington put away back-to-back kills to begin a 6-0 run that pulled Penn State ahead, 14-6. Hofstra looked to cut off the run with a kill, 14-7, but the Nittany Lions responded with five unanswered points to surge ahead, 19-7.
The Pride made one final attempt to get back on track with a kill, 19-8, but Penn State cruised to a 25-11 win in the fourth set to secure the win. Penn State returns to action later this evening, closing out the Syracuse Classic with a matchup against Orange at 7 p.m. in the Women's Building.