LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — The Penn State women's volleyball team won a historic national semifinal match Thursday to create even more history Sunday: For the first time since the NCAA tournament for the sport began in 1981, a woman will win the title as head coach.
That's guaranteed, as both teams in Sunday's finale (ABC, 3 p.m. ET) are led by women. Penn State is coached by Katie Schumacher-Cawley, while its championship round opponent, Louisville, is coached by Dani Busboom Kelly. Both women won NCAA titles as players: Schumacher-Cawley with Penn State in 1999 and Busboom Kelly with Nebraska in 2006.
“I think we've heard that quite a bit: the first time a woman does this or that,” Schumacher-Cawley said. “But I'm excited for this team. I think Dani is an exceptional coach and I'm excited for both of us to be able to compete at this level.”
It's been an emotional year for the Nittany Lions, with Schumacher-Cawley coaching despite being diagnosed with breast cancer in September. The Nittany Lions say they have been inspired by her.
Penn State will be seeking the program's eighth national title (seven of them came under former coach Russ Rose, who is retired) and Louisville will be seeking its first. A Cardinals victory would also mark the ACC's first title.
Nebraska coach John Cook, despite his disappointment at not reaching the finals, called it a “silver lining” for Busboom Kelly or Schumacher-Cawley to win a title as a head coach. Cook coached Busboom Kelly as a player and was his assistant at Nebraska before taking the Louisville job in 2017. He has made the NCAA Tournament every season with the Cardinals and this will be his second NCAA Final.
“There are two big stories you guys can write about,” Cook said. “Women are tough, and those two are… I mean, look at them as players. They were both great players.”
It looked as if Busboom Kelly, whose Cardinals won the first semifinal 3-1 over Pitt, would play his soul matter in the final, as Nebraska took a 2-0 lead over the Nittany Lions in Thursday's second game.
But then Penn State staged an epic comeback, becoming just the sixth team to pull off a reverse sweep (winning the final three sets after losing the first two) in the last four. The Nittany Lions are the only program to do it twice; They also pulled off a reverse sweep to win the championship game over Texas in 2009.
Nebraska was the last team to do so, against Illinois in the 2018 semifinals. But on Thursday, the stunned Huskers lost just their second NCAA Tournament match in any round after winning the first two sets. They are now 104-2 in that situation.
The Penn State-Nebraska game ended after midnight and the Nittany Lions won the fifth set 15-13. Jess Mruzik led Penn State with 26 kills and Cook called it one of the best performances he's seen from an outside hitter.
In the opening game of the night, Louisville delighted the crowd at the KFC Yum Center in downtown Louisville. The Cardinals played with the pressure of desperately wanting to reach the final four in their hometown. Now, the Cardinals have made it to the final game of the season.
Pitt had defeated the Cardinals twice in ACC play during the regular season, but Louisville won the game that mattered most.
“That pressure is suffocating, and there were times this season where we suffocated,” Busboom Kelly said of the Cardinals' desire to reach the final four. “But this team really got through that, and we had to work hard and have a lot of honest conversations about what it would take to get through that.”
Then on Thursday, the Cardinals had to overcome several other things: The Panthers won the first set, trailed Pitt early in the second set, faced four set points in the third set and lost standout Anna DeBeer to an injury ankle at the beginning of the game. the fourth set.
Louisville prevailed over all, leaving Pitt to contend with a fourth consecutive season that ended in the national semifinals. Pitt also lost to Louisville in the 2022 national semifinals. The Panthers' only loss this season before Thursday was 3-2 at SMU in October. Olivia Babcock had 33 kills to lead Pitt, which finished the season 33-2.
“We're hurting,” Pitt coach Dan Fisher said. “This is one of the toughest losses of my career. It certainly feels like a missed opportunity.”
The Panthers and Cardinals have become the most powerful programs in the ACC in recent years, although the addition of Stanford and Cal to the league this year brought a lot of prestige to volleyball. Stanford has won a record nine NCAA titles and Cal has reached the final four.
Pitt won the regular season games against Louisville 3-2 at Pittsburgh on October 25 and 3-1 at Louisville on November 27. The Cardinals were the fourth No. 1 seed, behind Pitt, Nebraska and Penn State. – and were nearly eliminated in the second round by Northern Iowa in one of the most intense games of the NCAA tournament. But Louisville beat UNI 22-20 in the fifth set, which featured nine match points.
The Cardinals swept Purdue and beat Stanford 3-1 to reach the final four for the third time. On Thursday, they were led by DeBeer, Charitie Luper and Sofia Maldonado Diaz, each with 14 kills.
When DeBeer exited after injuring his ankle with the Cardinals up 2-0 in the fourth set, freshman Payton Petersen came in and had two kills and four crucial kills to help the Cardinals win. Petersen's mother, Bobbi, coaches Northern Iowa and his twin sister, Jadyn, plays for UNI, so it had already been an emotional tournament for Payton after defeating them.
“It just felt weird,” Petersen said of facing his mother and sister in an NCAA Tournament game, adding that Northern Iowa, putting so much pressure on Louisville, ended up helping the Cardinals improve their play for the rest of the game. tournament.
When DeBeer initially went down Thursday, Petersen thought he could overcome it and come back. When it became clear that he couldn't do that, Petersen said, “I wanted to do this for her. She means a lot to me.”
As for DeBeer, Busboom Kelly said in an interview on the ESPN broadcast just after the game that the outside hitter would return for Sunday's finals. But in the postgame press conference, he softened that.
“If there's any indication that she can play, she's the type of kid that's going to go out and play,” Busboom Kelly said of DeBeer. “But we won't know more until tomorrow.”
