This is the point in the college volleyball season where you are what your record says you are — and the reigning national champion Penn State is 7-5.
We’ve reached that point where you can’t just look at a team’s potential, and even if a team had a tough opening slate of matches, it’s now played a mix of good teams and bad teams and settled into a main lineup.
Penn State is one of those teams that will still cause an opposing coach concern even if it had 10 losses, and that’s the case when No. 1 Nebraska takes on No. 16 Penn State on Friday in Nebraska’s first major match of the Big Ten season.
The 7 p.m. match in State College, Pennsylvania, got a big-time TV assignment on Friday night on Fox.
What’s still scary about a matchup against Penn State is that it has the player in college volleyball most capable of taking over a match in 6-foot-6 right-side hitter Kennedy Martin; several others players remain from the national championship team from last year; and Rec Hall can be one of the most intimidating places to play when it’s a match with a big opponent like the Huskers.
Penn State’s season has changed after All-American setter Izzy Starck left the team after its fourth match “in order to prioritize my mental health.”
In her preseason ballot for the AVCA rankings, Nebraska coach Dani Busboom Kelly had Penn State ranked No. 2 or No. 3. And while Penn State had a change at setter since then, many of the reasons she thought so highly of the Nittany Lions remain.
“At the time when you look at them, they’re bringing back their starting setter who was an All-American,” Busboom Kelly said. “And their libero (Gillian Grimes), who I don’t know if she was an All-American, but she should have been if she wasn’t. So that’s two really good pieces to start with.
“And then you add Emmi Sellman and Kennedy Martin and those are two great pin hitters.”
Penn State also returned two good middle blockers: former Husker Maggie Mendelson and Nebraska native Jordan Hopp of Alliance. And outside hitter Caroline Jurevicius, who had some good matches against Nebraska last year.
“It just felt like they were certainly going to be one of the most talented teams,” Busboom Kelly said. “At least the most talented core seven or eight players.”
Busboom Kelly saw firsthand how good Penn State was last season while coaching at Louisville. In addition to the national championship match loss, Penn State swept Louisville in State College early in the season, with the Cardinals never reaching 20 points in a set.
”We got rolled,” Busboom Kelly said.
While Friday’s match may not be the top-5 matchup you once expected it to be, Nebraska senior Rebekah Allick says this “absolutely” still feels like a big match.
”I still see them as the team from last year,” Allick said. “I know they have some new firepower. Again, I’m going to lead by example with this but I got a grudge, so I want to kick some butt.”
In Penn State’s last match, Martin still reached 34 kills even though it was a four-set match (it still lost against unranked UCLA).
Busboom Kelly saw that, knowing that’s the team Nebraska would play next.
“It’s not that surprising because she’s so good and talented,” Busboom Kelly said. “It’s somebody that we know is going to get their kills. It’s just, can you slow her down? I don’t know. We’re trying to slow her down while maintaining everybody else on their team. I think those are the questions we’re answering this week and working to figure out.”
Martin already has matches this season with kill totals of 34, 29, 29, 23 and 21.
Now the Penn State setter is senior Addie Lyon, who played for Saint Louis last season.
Penn State will have a considerable home court advantage. And if Nebraska loses it really tightens things up for Nebraska’s hopes of winning the Big Ten title.
“Games like this always kind of have some sort of implications for postseason,” setter Bergen Reilly said. “We know what our goals are, and that’s a Big Ten championship and a national championship. So every game matters.”
And this match comes with Nebraska as the opponent in “one of the loudest gyms in the country,” Reilly said.
“The fans are going to be on top of you and they’re going to say some crazy things,” she said.
Reach the writer at 402-473-7435 or bwagner@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSSportsWagner.
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Brent Wagner
Husker volleyball/women’s basketball reporter
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