Colorado
2-2
Penn State
4-0
No. 21 Buffs Put Up Fight But Fall To Top-Ranked Penn State
September 04, 2015 | Volleyball
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The No. 21 University of Colorado volleyball team put up a great fight against top-ranked Penn State on Friday night, but were unable to pull off the upset, falling 3-0 (25-19, 25-21, 25-18) in the Big Ten/Pac-12 Challenge.
Senior Alexis Austin led both teams with 10 kills in the effort, while sophomore Gabby Simpson had eight kills. The Buffs were held to a .055 hitting efficiency, recording 35 kills and 29 errors on 109 attacks. Penn State didn't fair that much better, hitting .172. The Nittany Lions recorded 29 kills, six less than the Buffs, but also committed 13 errors on 93 attacks. Haleigh Washington led PSU with eight kills.
Defensively PSU posted 13.0 blocks, while CU tallied 3.0 in the contest. PSU's Heidi Thelen led both teams with seven block assists and the Buffs were led by freshman Naghede Abu with three block assists. The Buffs did have the advantage in digs (42-33) and were led by Simpson's 15. Freshman Abbie D'Agosta had a career-best 12 digs and junior Cierra Simpson added nine digs.
The Buffs (2-2) are no strangers to playing top-ranked opponents and gave the Nittany Lions (4-0) a tough test. They did not go away despite being down in the match. In every set, the Buffs made great efforts to compete with PSU, but just couldn't overcome the early deficit in front of PSU's crowd of over 3,000.
The Buffs jumped out to a quick start in the match, taking the first two points with a block by Abu and Nicole Edelman and had a 4-2 advantage before the Nittany Lions rattled off a 9-1 run to go up 11-5. CU regrouped and put together a run of its own, 6-1, to get within a point (12-11), but again PSU got rolling and went back up 18-12, causing the Buffs to use their final timeout of the set. CU kept chipping away and closed the gap to five at 23-18, which included a 3-0 run that forced PSU to take its first timeout of the match. The Nittany Lions came out of the break and finished the set, 25-19.
PSU took a 6-0 start in the second set, but the Buffs got the score back to three at 9-6 and continued to battle. CU closed the gap to a pair at 16-14 and 17-15, but each time the Nittany Lions answered to stay ahead of the Buffs. PSU had set point at 24-18, but the Buffs held them off with three straight points off of a block by Abu and Austin, a PSU attack error and another block by Stephanie Shadley and Abu, before the Nittany Lions closed the set 25-21.
The Nittany Lions jumped out of the gate in the third set with a 9-2 run. PSU extended the lead to nine points at 17-8, but just like the Buffs had done all night, they rallied back to get the score to six points (21-15), causing PSU to take a timeout. The Nittany Lions took the first three points out of the break (24-15) to get to set point, but CU was not done and fought off three match points before PSU finished the contest 25-18.
The Big Ten/Pac-12 Challenge continues on Saturday. The Buffs will square off against No. 6 Illinois (3-1) at 3:30 p.m. MT, while PSU will host Stanford (3-0) at 6 p.m. MT. Both matches will be televised live on Big Ten Network. Fate Brewing Company (1600 38th Street) in Boulder will host a watch party for Saturday's match.
