PENN STATE BLANKS LOUSVILLE VOLLEYBALL -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 LIONS DEVOUR CARDS IN STRAIGHT SETS 

Maybe we can put this one in the "I did not expect that to happen" category. It certainly was a surprise to Cardinals fans, and the squad...as Louisville Volleyball visited Penn State last night and left with a defeat -- in straight set -- in women's college volleyball last nght. 25-15, 25-19, 25-13 was the final set results, in what appears to be not just a defeat, but a rout. A top ten showdown and the Cards got shot down. 

The first set was fairly close early. The Cards and Nittany Lions were tied at 6-6 and Louisville was still fairly close after a Charite Luper point to make it 13-10 P.S.U. Then, the wheels fell off. Penn State went on a 6-1 run to grab a 19-11 lead. PSU's Quinn Nerger's three straight serving successes had Louisville on the ropes. The Cards would not get any closer than eight the rest of the set. 

In set two,  Louisville did grab an early 4-2 lead, after a Penn State servcie error, but the home squad rallied from a 7-4 deficit to tie the conrest at 7-7. The Cards made a contest of the second set for a good while, the score was16-16 at one point, but four straight Penn State points made it 20-16. That turned into a 24-19 lead and the Cards got handed their second loss when Izzy Starck had a set-ending kill, the Nittany Lions freshman setter that was playing like a fifth year veteran..

Louisville (now 2-1) ran into a Penn State squad that wanted to make a statement in the third set...and they did.  Louisville was able to stay close early, but at 9-8, the Nittany Lions (3-0) roared and all of a sudden, it was 12-8 and Louisville needed a timeout. 

The Cards simply got worse the longer the set went. 14-10 became 18-12 and Lousville looked like a defeated squad. Or, as one Cardinals fan put it.."Penn State played out of their minds and we played like crap."  

Louisville went into  the match ranked as the #4 team in the AVCA poll, Penn State...(now 3-0) was listed as the #7 squad by AVCA.  It looked like the reverse (or worse)  Tuesday nght. The Louisville team that romped Tennessee simply did not play well up north. Just when you thought Pitt was the pnly team to worry about in Pennsylvana...guess who showed up on the floor?  A hungry bunch of lions. 

Louisville heads to northern Kentucky for a weekend of matches starting with South Dakota Friday in a tournament hosted by Northern Kentucky University.

paulie