Penn State Volleyball To Play Pitt In Pair Of April Exhibition Matches

Posted on by Ethan Kasales

The Penn State women’s volleyball team will compete against in-state rival Pitt in a pair of exhibition matches this spring.

The Nittany Lions will travel to Oakland Sunday, April 14 for a 1 p.m. scrimmage before hosting the Panthers on Friday, April 19 at 6 p.m. at Rec Hall. Admission is free of charge for the match in University Park, with doors opening at 5 p.m.

The Nittany Lions scrimmaged West Virginia in Morgantown last March and played against an Athletes Unlimited pro roster featuring Penn State alumnae Deja McClendon and Alisha Glass Childress on April 21, 2023 at Rec Hall. Halfway through the four-set match, which ended in a 2-2 tie, Childress and McClendon donned Penn State jerseys and switched sides of the net to play alongside the Nittany Lions again.

Although the Panthers have been a regular spring scrimmage opponent of Penn State over the years, the two teams haven’t met since the second round of the 2021 NCAA tournament, when Pitt eliminated the Nittany Lions in four sets at the Petersen Events Center in what wound up being Russ Rose’s final match as head coach. Rose, the NCAA’s all-time wins leader with a record of 1,330-229, announced his retirement on December 23, 2021 following 43 seasons and seven national championships.

In 2019, Penn State and Pitt split their regular-season series, with the Nittany Lions losing in straight sets on Friday, September 20 at Rec Hall before avenging the loss with a 3-2 victory over the Panthers two days later in Oakland, also at the Petersen Events Center, in front of what was then a record crowd for a Pitt home volleyball match of 5,195. That mark was broken on November 18, 2023 when 8,865 attended Pitt’s 3-2 win over Louisville. The April 14 match against Penn State is likely to be played at Fitzgerald Field House, Pitt’s usual volleyball venue.

The Panthers have lost in the NCAA semifinals each of the last three seasons, falling to Nebraska in 2021 and 2023 and Louisville in 2022. Last fall, on the other side of Pennsylvania, the Nittany Lions swept Temple on September 8 in the first volleyball match in Liacouras Center history. Pitt was ranked No. 4 in the final AVCA poll following the 2023 season, while Penn State finished No. 12 after Katie Schumacher-Cawley led her team to its second consecutive Sweet 16 to begin her tenure as head coach of the Nittany Lions.

Schumacher-Cawley is 49-17 entering her third season at the helm of her alma mater. The Big Ten announced the opponent breakdown for all 18 volleyball programs ahead of the 2024 season last Thursday, sharing which three teams each school will play both home and away. Penn State and the other Big Ten programs, which now include USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington, will play the remaining 14 schools once — seven at home and seven away — to reach the usual 20-match conference slate. Dates and start times have yet to be released.

The Nittany Lions received a big boost in December when second-team AVCA All-American Jess Mruzik, Taylor Trammell, and Camryn Hannah all elected to use their bonus season of eligibility granted by the NCAA in the wake of COVID-19 for one more go-around at the college level in 2024. Penn State also welcomed heralded freshmen Izzy Starck and Ava Falduto to campus as early enrollees this January, as well as highly sought-after transfers Caroline Jurevicius and Maggie Mendelson, both from Nebraska.

Fans will have a chance to watch these four Penn State newcomers play in the blue and white for the first time this April against the Panthers in what should be an extremely entertaining pair of contests between two of the nation’s premier Division I programs, located just 135 miles apart. Middle blocker Jordan Hopp will join the Nittany Lions after graduating from Iowa State this semester, but will miss out on this April’s exhibitions as she wraps up her academic requirements in Ames.