Russ Rose Then (2017): “Haleigh is one of the premier attackers in the country. Her vision is what enables her to hit with the lofty percentage she has. She’s worked hard on her blocking, and I look forward to her having a strong senior year. She is a person we’ll really depend on late in the season and late in tight matches. She is bright, competitive and committed to the team.”
Russ Rose Now (2026): “Haleigh was one of the top recruits in the country, and like a lot of great middles, she had incredible vision. Similar to Lauren Cacciamani, she was incredibly bright and analytical of the things that mattered for her to excel. Because of her confidence in herself, she was able to do things with attacking that normally took years to develop. Haleigh, to her credit, got better and better each year, and she has gone on to have a magnificent career, obviously highlighted by winning the Olympic gold medal. She was clearly one of the most engaging players that that I coached — she has continued to embrace that role as one of the main spokespeople for USA Volleyball. I would have predicted that she would have earned her PhD in philosophy and been working at a big school as a professor before I would have predicted that she would have followed the volleyball route and made that her life’s work for the past eight or 10 years. I talked to her a couple of days ago and she’s still playing professionally in the US, still leading, and continues to be inquisitive about the game. She was a joy to have in the gym and in the program.”
2017 Season (Senior) Highlights and Awards: 2017 Senior CLASS Award for Women’s Volleyball, chosen by a nationwide vote of Division I volleyball coaches, national volleyball media and fans, to the most outstanding senior student-athlete in Division I volleyball … AVCA First Team All American for the 3rd time in her career… Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year … 4-time All-Big Ten honoree … 3-time CoSIDA Academic All-American, earning 2nd-team honors in 2017 and 2015 and 3rd-team honors in 2016 … earned Academic All-Big Ten honors in her sophomore and junior seasons … Team Captain, along with Simone Lee and Clare Powers led the nation with a .492 hitting percentage … helped Penn State to a 33-1 record, a No. 1 overall ranking in the final polls of the 2017 season, and the top seed in the NCAA Tournament … earned 5 Big Ten Player of the Week honors throughout the season, which brought her career total to a program-high 10 — the second-most in Big Ten history.
Season Recap: Started all 35 matches and appeared in all 123 sets … averaged 1.52 blocks per set while putting down 3.06 kills per set on the season … her averages on the season were all career bests, including surpassing 3.00-kills per set for the first time in her career … earned Big Ten Player of the Week honor on 9/5, following a weekend where she finished with with a total of 22 kills on a clip of .435, adding 13 blocks, 4 digs, and an ace, and was named ‘Best Blocker’ of the Texas A&M Tournament … tallied 22 double-digit kill performances, including a career-best 21 in a four-set win over Minnesota (11/25) … had 22 matches with at least 5.0 blocks, including 10.0 in the Nittany Lion’s 5-set set win over Stanford (9/9), where she also put down 11 kills for a double-double … earned her 2nd Big Ten Player of the Week honor on Oct. 2, after the Nittany Lions swept Illinois and Northwestern … she hit .556 for the weekend, averaged 3.5 kills per set out of the middle, and added 1.5 blocks/set on the weekend … earned her 3d Big Ten Player of the Week honor on Oct. 9, after averaging 5.2 points per set out of the middle, and leading the team in kills (3.88), blocks (1.88), and points (5.2) and finishing with a .531 hitting percentage … earned a 4th Big Ten Player of the Week honor on Oct. 30, after averaging a team-best 4.64 points per set out of the middle over two matches, with 3.43 kills per set on a .548 hitting percentage, adding 2.14 blocks per set. She also scooped up four digs … earned her 5th and final Big Ten Player of the Week honor for the 2017 season following the final weekend of regular season, putting down 10 kills on a .450 clip, with 5 blocks on the evening at Wisconsin, and totaling a career-high 21 kills on a .514 hitting percentage against Minnesota, adding 7 blocks, averaging 4.94 points per set for the weekend.
NCAA Tournament: Averaged 2.95 kills/set and 1.53 blocks/set in Penn State’s 5 NCAA Tournament matches … posted a 10-block performance in the sweep of Michigan State in the Regional Final (12/9).