Carver-Hawkeye Arena

 McClendon, Slay Lead Team Effort

(Photos courtesy of GoPSUsports.com)

Penn State upped its season record to 21-1 (11-0 B1G) with a 3-0 (25-15, 25-19, 25-15) win over the Iowa Hawkeyes last evening in what play-by-play announcer Liz Tortorello-Nelson described as a “huge” (and mostly-empty) Carver-Hawkeye arena.  6-1 Jr. OH Deja McClendon’s 11 kills and 12 digs were tops in the match (she also chipped in 4 blocks), as she followed up her match against Michigan with another impressive outing.

6-6 Jr. MH Katie Slay totaled 8 kills (.800 attack %) and 4 blocks, 5-6 So. L  Dominique Gonzalez registered 10 digs, and 5-11 So. S Micha Hancock posted 34 assists, 8 digs, and at least two crowd-pleasing athletic plays (well, crowd-pleasing for the Penn State fans watching on TV) that brought this crowd of one to its feet (both of them).

After the match, Iowa Head Coach Sharon Dingman had this to say to hawkeyesports.com:

They keep coming at you. I thought we did some nice things tonight, but their size overwhelmed us.

Snap impressions?  Leadership (to our uninformed eyes) appears to be on the right trajectory (i.e. improving), and errors were down (8 attack errors for the match) — both good signs.  McClendon, Slay, and Scott look solid, and Hancock and 6-2 So. MH Nia Grant are both soooo athletic (Grant just explodes off the slide).  6-2 Fr. OH Megan Courtney?  She can’t be a freshman, can she?  Speaking of freshmen, both 5-6 Fr. DS Kendall Pierce (who registered an ace) and 5-4 Fr. DS Lara Caraway saw action in the match.

Oh, and Dom Gonzalez and 5-6 So. DS Lacey Fuller? We are so glad you chose to come to Penn State! (And did we really see Russ Rose give a high-five to Lacey? Yes, we just replayed the match.  We did!)

Match Stats

( Courtesy of CBS GameTracker)