PENN STATE WINS NATIONAL TITLE – CDT
For the first time in eight years, the Penn State women’s volleyball team has won the national championship! The Lions beat Stanford in Sacramento. Just by coincidence, the last time they won it, the football team played Texas A&M in the Alamo Bowl. Deja vu all over again!
While we were in Muir Woods yesterday (more later), I was asked if “we were going to beat Stanford” on two occasions. I was wearing my Penn State hockey sweater at the time. One woman, a Nebraska fan, offered us a pair of tickets to the championship match; she didn’t need them because the Cornhuskers were eliminated by Stanford in the semi-finals, Penn State beat Cal to advance to the title game. We declined the tickets, preferring to spend the evening in San Francisco instead of Sacramento.
Mark Kreidler of ESPN describes the team in his column, Nittany Lions lay it all on the line in NCAA title win
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Loose is one thing. Loose is calm, relaxed, easily focused. What the Penn State volleyball players do, when they really get going, is something closer to frantic than loose. It’s like a jailbreak, with the screaming and the fist pumping. Lots of yelling — almost all of it at each other, and almost all of it to the good.
Or, as sophomore setter Alisha Glass explained it with a smile, “The other night, we were screaming and yelling while we were still warming up on the sport-court outside the gym. The other team is probably going, ‘We haven’t even stepped on the court.’”
Bad news for the other team: Penn State eventually steps on the court.
Sweet.
