Michigan State volleyball season ends one match short of Final Four
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The happy ending to the special season put together by the Michigan State women’s volleyball team was blocked by Penn State on Saturday night.
The Spartans could not get past the Nittany Lions’ brick wall.
Top-seeded Penn State handed a 25-23, 25-17, 28-26 loss to Michigan State in the NCAA Regional Championship at Rec Hall, denying the Spartans their first trip to the Final Four since 1995.
“We know there’s really only one team that’s not going to look like this at the end of the season, so we’re happy that we were able to make history as a team,” Spartan senior setter Rachel Minarick said. “It’s going to hurt for a while, but time will heal.”
The Nittany Lions (33-1), winners of 23 straight, are in the Final Four for the 13th time in program history and the first since hoisting their last title trophy in 2014. Nebraska, Big Ten co-champions with the Nittany Lions, will be on the other side of the net Thursday at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri.
“It’s really exciting and it’s my last season, so I’m happy to spend these moments with my teammates,” senior right-side hitter Heidi Thelen said. “We want to win so we’re going to work hard.”
MORE:Michigan State volleyball one win away from Final Four, beats Illinois, 3-1
The Cornhuskers, who beat Kentucky in four sets Saturday, knocked Penn State out of last year’s tournament in the regional semifinals. Florida and defending champion Stanford will battle in the other semifinal.
Autumn Bailey delivered a match-high 18 kills, adding 12 digs in her final match as one of seven Spartan seniors. Holly Toliver added nine kills and 10 digs for Michigan State (24-9). Alyssa Garvelink posted six blocks, Jayme Cox picked up 17 digs and Minarick gave out 34 assists to give her 4,581 for her career to jump into the top spot in program history. She passed Nikki Colson’s 4,563 assist total from 2000-03.
“I really appreciate the effort and the way we fought, and everything this team has gone through for the last 4-5 years,” Michigan State coach Cathy George said. “The way you give of yourself is what makes a team special and that really is true of our team.”
Minarick and Bailey earned regional All-Tournament Team honors.
Penn State was paced by Simone Lee’s 12 kills and 10 digs on her way to earning regional Most Outstanding Player honors. They also got nine kills from Thelen and eight for Ali Frantti. Kendall White delivered 18 digs, and Abby Detering and Bryanna Weiskircher distributed 21 and 19 assists, respectively.
Michigan State had trouble solving the Penn State block. The Nittany Lions posted a 14-8 advantage, led by 10 from Haleigh Washington, three of them solo denials. Thelen added four stuffs.
“They’re one of the better blocking teams, for sure, in the country,” Bailey said. “They’re going to get their blocks and that will help them going forward.”
Haleigh Washington, however, did have an off night hitting. The nation’s leader in hitting percentage had just five kills and two errors to hit .176, and was held to just one kill and minus-.100 hitting over the first two frames.
“They committed two people to her quite a bit and it opened up other opportunities,” Penn State coach Russ Rose said. “The best thing about Haleigh is that she didn’t care that she didn’t have kills, because she was blocking well and the team was winning.”
With two regular-season meetings between the teams, the Spartans had seen Washington play quite a bit over the last four years.
“We did a nice job following the scouting report and really figuring out what we needed to do,” George said. “I thought the blockers did a nice job with that, but then we let a couple other (Penn State hitters) go.”
The Spartans had an 18-14 lead in the opening set before Penn State ignited on a 7-1 run, buoyed by two Frantti kills and back-to-back Washington solo blocks. Michigan State never again led, and Lee wrapped it up by bouncing a kill off a Spartan into the bleachers.
Washington then stacked up her blocks in the second set, posting seven to inspire an even louder roar from the home crowd. The Lions blasted off to a 12-4 lead and never let Michigan State closer than five the rest of the set.
“They just had a couple streaks on us where we were making a lot of errors,” Minarick said. “They did a good job getting us out of system a lot, but we didn’t handle those situations as well as we wanted to. We knew going in we didn’t want to hemorrhage points, because that’s something we’ve done previously against them.”
Michigan State figured out a way around the Penn State block in the third, but Penn State’s offense was still firing away and appeared ready to lock up the victory at 20-15 in the set. But the Spartans fought back, holding off two match points to knot the frame at 24-24. The Nittany Lions then denied a pair of Michigan State set points and ran off the final three points on a Thelen kill, Thelen and Gorrell teaming up on a block and a Spartan spike sailing long to end the match.
Asked to play the biggest match in program history against the seven-time national champions in their own gym, where they are now 62-3 all-time in NCAA tournament matches, could have been intimidating, but the Spartans were up for the challenge.
“We were just thinking, ‘Play with nothing to lose tonight,’” said Bailey. “It’s kind of a fun environment to play in. It’s better than playing in an empty gym. We just wanted to have some fun out there and leave it on the court.”