Post by nyline on Dec 6, 2015 15:04:23 GMT -5
Way late (slacker staff, and slacker boss), but here's a link to our write-up of the Penn State vs. Dayton match, with quotes from Coach Rose, Wilma Rivera, and Heidi Thelen:
Sweet . . . (16) . . . Penn State Cancels Dayton’s Flight to Des Moines
Here's an excerpt:
Comparing the statistics for set 1 in last night’s 3-1 win (25-17, 13-25, 25-14, 25-17) by Penn State (28-5) over Dayton (27-6) to the statistics for set 2 in the match, it might seem as if one team or the other was whisked away and replaced by a different, and much better (looking at Dayton) or worse (looking at Penn State) team. In the first set, Penn State sided out at an impressive 76% (to Dayton’s 51%). The second set, the results were pretty much reversed: Dayton sided-out at 76%, and Penn State fell to 40%.
Coach Rose certainly wasn’t pleased by that turn of events, but he wasn’t surprised:
I thought it was a very competitive match. I’d like to recognize Dayton on a great season. They entered the match with the longest win streak in the country [25 straight wins]. We knew that it was going to be a tough match. The video that we had on them was them beating a really good Ohio team, and then I watched Ohio last night go the last few swings [3-1 loss] against [#13 seed] BYU at BYU.
So I knew that Dayton was going to have a great fight in them after we took the first game. I thought we did a real nice job offensively. We had a couple kids that got hurt during the match and really gritted it out. I thought it was a valiant effort. I thought Ali [Frantti] played terrific tonight [14 kills, .407 attack%]; Aiyana [Whitney] was great offensively [14 kills, .448 attack %, 4 blocks]; and Heidi [Thelen] [7 kills, 8 attempts, .875 attack %] made a great impact in the match and on our team. I thought that Kendall [Pierce] did a real nice job passing [13 digs, zero errors on serve-receive].
But Dayton’s a terrific opponent. We feel fortunate to advance. We know it’s never a given, it’s always hard, every match has its challenges, and this one [was] no different. So I’m really thrilled with our effort tonight, how we competed — especially after playing as poorly as we did in the second game.
Sweet . . . (16) . . . Penn State Cancels Dayton’s Flight to Des Moines