College Sports

Penn State is building itself a minor dynasty in college volleyball.

PSU became only the second school in NCAA history to grab a women’s volleyball national title in the fall, and a men’s title in the spring. Stanford performed the feat during the 1996-97 fall and spring seasons.

The top-ranked Nittany Lions men’s volleyball team defeated Pepperdine 3-1 (27-30, 33-31, 30-25, 30-23) for the NCAA D-1 title Sunday night in Irvine, Ca. The title was the second for the men’s team, which also won in 1994. That year the Nittany Lions became the first team outside of California to win the championship.

Now when I think about volleyball, I picture sand and waves, but college teams battle it out under the lights of the gym, often in basketball arenas. And man, is it exciting to watch! But beware, only 22 schools compete at the D-1 level, 13 in D-2 (including four schools in PR), but a whopping 48 in D-3.

The D-1 championship game was a classic battle of #1 vs. #2. The format is best three out of five games, playing to 30, and games must be won by two points. PSU dropped the first match before winning the next three and taking the title.But there were no gimmies, this was a hard fought title match. The largest margin of victory was seven in the final game of the match.

College volleyball is an exciting sport, lots of action with passes, digs, dives and spikes (the over the net kind, not the cleats!). It’s an easy sport to watch and understand, because virtually all of us have played schoolyard volleyball.

When I was an undergraduate majoring in sports information, volleyball was one of the first sports I worked and I loved it. Keep in mind, I am a football/basketball/baseball kind of fan, so I figured I would earn my (small) pay and move on, but it was one of the most fun sports to watch.

This season may be over, but women’s volleyball will be firing up in the fall, so put it on your calendar and get out for a match.

For highlights of the championship game, click the link below:

ESPN Championship Game Video

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