Match Day: Penn State vs. Wisconsin (with Haleigh Washington

Kendall White will solve this defensive problem next year but judging by the coaches' actions they don't have answer for it right now. I thought Lainy Pierce would take the DS spot and she still might after she gets more practice time.

I took another look at this match (thank you, Tivo) and had a few more thoughts.

1) Wisconsin served really tough the 2nd set and it did them no good. PSU passed really well. Was super impressed with Holcomb's handling of some rockets along the baseline. Badgers were really blasting serves and with a few exceptions she was holding up really well. If Wisconsins serving can't get PSU out of system I'm not sure there is a B1G team out there that can. Maybe Minnesota.

2) Meanwhile, PSU's serve was causing LOTS of problems for the Badgers even with their vaunted passers. It was one thing against Stanford which is breaking in some new back row players. But this was Morey and Wisky's excellent DS's. Washington is bombing. Weiskircher is a terrific server -- who knew? Lainy Pierce picking up where she left off last year. They kept serving Carlini every time she was in the back row and just kept the Wisconsin offense out of sync. I suspect service errors are going to be much less than last year. They won't have as many aces but they may have more runs with fewer errors to stop them.

3) If someone told you there was an all-American setter on the court and there was a redshirt freshman in her first starting B1G match, would you have picked the right players? It was Carlini dropping balls in weird places, tight sets, it was Wisconsin's offense that just didn't look synched at all. Meanwhile Weiskircher was making good decisions, her hitters looked so comfortable. She's good at the net, she's good in the back row. She made some lovely athletic recoveries of errant passes. She just seems calm, a leader out there on a team that has all kinds of good leadership.

4) It would be worth being a PSU fan just to watch Megan Courtney. Who else has mastered all the front row skills and all the back row skills? She really ought to get some POY consideration this year.

5) I don't recall Frantti even tipping last year. Maybe she didn't have it in her repertoire. Anyway she dropped a perfect tip at a very good moment in game 2 (and teams should tip more against Wisconsin because Morey is frequently cheating back.)