Penn State Women’s Volleyball Rallies Past Illinois 3-2

Posted on by Ethan Kasales

No. 9 Penn State women’s volleyball rallied from a 2-1 deficit to beat Illinois in five sets (25-16, 27-29, 26-28, 25-15, 15-8) Saturday night at Rec Hall.

Annie Cate Fitzpatrick was phenomenal in the victory, further establishing herself as a star-in-the-making for the Nittany Lions. Fitzpatrick led all players with 17 kills and 17 digs, while sophomore setter Emily Oerther turned in another strong performance with 46 assists and 12 digs in Gabby Blossom’s absence.

The Nittany Lions hit .284 as a team and had four players finish with double-digit kills in the come-from-behind win, including Jonni Parker (12), Anastasiya Kudryashova (11), and Kaitlyn Hord (11). Four Penn State players also reached double figures in digs — Fitzpatrick, Parker, Oerther, and Maddy Bilinovic, who had 16 digs for the second night in a row while wearing the libero jersey.

Hannah Flowers made her Penn State debut in the third set and finished the night with three kills and a block. The graduate transfer from Memphis was efficient and added to a balanced Penn State attack that performed well against the Fighting Illini despite a handful of unavailable players.

Although she had a rather quiet weekend in terms of kills, Serena Gray was excellent from the service line Saturday night. Gray led the Nittany Lions with four aces and continues to be one of the best serving middle blockers in the Big Ten. Considering the uncertainty surrounding its hitters heading into the season, Penn State has to feel encouraged about its options on offense moving forward. Check out the press conference transcripts from Russ Rose and Annie Cate Fitzpatrick below.

Rose’s opening statement:

“I thought it was a typical Big Ten match. I thought we started out real well in the first game. We had some opportunities after a really slow start in the second game. We got ourselves back into the second game and had some opportunities and missed a serve at 25-25. We lost the second and third games deuce and had to battle and won the fourth game and, you know, had some momentum going into the fifth. The conference is always a challenge every night. We were fortunate tonight that AC had a good night offensively. I thought that Kaitlyn had a good night offensively. Those were really the two people who I thought carried us offensively. We weren’t nearly as good in some areas as we were last night. I think that maybe was just the excitement of the first night playing, but credit to Illinois for putting pressure on us and playing as the type of team that they normally do.”

Q: Going into that fifth set, what was that like after being down 2-1 and then taking that fourth set?

“I think the players felt a lot better after the sort of game they had. They hit .360 in the fourth game. We hit about .475 in the first game, so we hit really well in that game, and I think we had a lot of confidence going in, but we also were responsible for being down 2-1. That’s part of the game. Part of being a mature team and having people on the floor with the ability to lead others and be confident is the ability to kind of direct your teammates and prevent those sort of internal things from happening. We didn’t really demonstrate that too well. I’m sure I wasn’t very helpful, because I was pretty pissed myself. That’s kind of how it goes.”

What stood out to you the most from Annie Cate’s performance in just her second match at Penn State?

“Well, on a positive side, we kind of wanted to neutralize some of the errors she was making from the end line, so we kind of changed the emphasis on being an aggressive server. I thought in that first game she had a good, hard, flat serve, and was digging balls, and that really gave us a real nice stretch. In the second and third game, she got pretty tentative. She’ll learn. She’s always going to be an undersized outside hitter. She’s going to play hard. That’s one of the things she does. She likes to take big swings. She just has to learn to take smart swings when she’s playing against a big block and she’s out of system, because if you hit it real hard into a big block, it puts a lot of pressure on your teammates to cover. It’s a big challenge.”

Annie Cate Fitzpatrick

Q: AC, what was going through your mind as you led Penn State in kills in your first two matches of your college career?

“I was just having a lot of fun. I love the competitiveness of the game. It’s really nice having a bunch of other hitters on the team who can hold those middles, because obviously I’m undersized, so it’s nice to be able to think that the ball is going elsewhere so I get that opportunity to be one-on-one. Having that helped and then obviously having Emily setting me, she was getting me quick balls so I could beat the block some of the time, so it was just really nice having teammates who can do that for me.”

Q: You started off the season strong with two straight wins. What is the mentality of both you and the team now going into this week and getting ready for Minnesota?

“I think it’s basically just going to be everybody getting back. We’re going to have the majority of our players back and practicing, so we’re going to get into the mentality that we’re all going to be here and that we can’t make all the errors that we did tonight, because in that second and third set, we were pretty high error. I was making kind of bad calls myself like taking rips at the ball when I’m leaning back. I think it’s going to be a lot of finishing out the plays and not getting into those little divots that we got into and just siding out once we make a mistake.”

Q: What stood out to you the most from Maddy Bilinovic’s performance?

“Maddy’s just everywhere all the time. She’s great defensively and she is so loud, which helps the team so much, because it’s so great to have a loud person who’s all up in the your face on the court. She’s just super into the game and she brings a ton of energy onto the court, which we really need, especially in those fifth-set matches. I thought she did a great job this weekend.”