Lady spikers lose to Cardinal in title game

They took different paths to get there and played very different teams along the way, but Penn State and Stanford met for the third time this season. The only difference was this match was for the national championship.

After cruising through the first three rounds of the 1997 NCAA Tournament posting 3-0 victories over Northern Illinois, Ohio State and Brigham Young, the Penn State women's volleyball team reached its final destination -- the Final Four in Spokane, Wash., on Dec. 18-20.

The Lady Lions had to first face a tough, scrappy Florida squad which came into the Final Four ranked No. 8 in the country boasting a 34-3 record overall. In a match that Penn State coach Russ Rose called "hotly contested, not necessarily well played," the Lady Lions were outhit, outblocked and outdug by the Gators, but still managed to triumph 3-0.

"I never thought we really got into a very good rhythm or tempo," Rose said. "But we still found a way to win in three games that we could have lost our composure and lost."

The other semifinal match pitted No. 3 Stanford against No. 1 Long Beach State and AVCA Div. I Player of the Year Misty May. The Cardinal was victorious 3-1.

Perhaps the most difficult task in any sport is to defeat the same team twice in one season, let alone three times. But that was exactly what Penn State had to do to be the first school from the East to ever win a national title.

Twice before the Lady Lions were called to action against the Cardinal, and twice they had answered the call. Penn State knocked off Stanford 3-0 on Aug. 23 to capture the State Farm/NACWAA Classic and then on Sept. 6 by a 3-1 margin to bring home the IKON-Husky Invitational Championship.

As cliché as it sounds, the third time was the charm for Stanford.

With Stanford leading 2-1 going into a pivotal game four, Penn State scratched and clawed its way to a victory to knot the match at two games apiece.

The Cardinal wasted no time as it vaulted out to a 8-4 lead in the most exciting game of the match only to see the Lady Lions rattle off six of the next eight points to even the score at 10. With the score tied at 15, Penn State outside hitter Carrie Schonveld notched a kill followed by a Stanford hitting error to send the match to the fifth and decisive rally-scoring game.

"When you look at the statistics you see both teams had over 80 attempts in that one game," Stanford coach Don Shaw said. "These two teams have played matches this year where we haven't had that many swings in the match. It was just a classic."

Penn State started the match tight and sluggish and quickly found itself down by two games heading into the first break in action. The Lady Lions had yet to face a challenge of this caliber all season. To come from behind and defeat the defending national champions seemed nearly impossible.

With a comfortable two-game cushion (15-10, 15-6) the Cardinal went into the locker room with visions of winning back-to-back national titles and a fourth in the 1990s. But Penn State wouldn't go out without a fight. With Christy Cochran missing a tooth (she met Terri Zemaitis' elbow in game one) and Schonveld bleeding from the mouth after she bit her lip, Penn State appeared down, but not out.

Game three gave the 10,792 fans a chance to see the real Penn State team. The Lady Lions hitting attack shredded the Cardinal defense and cruised to a 15-2 victory. Then came the game four marathon and the dream-crushing game five.

In game five, in which every serve results in a point, Penn State fell behind early and never recovered. Stanford's Kristin Folkl recorded her 22nd kill of the match for a 15-9 win propelling the Cardinal to the title.

Uncharacteristically, the MVP, as voted on by the media, came from the losing team. How fittingly the winner was none other than Terri Zemaitis. Capping off an outstanding career at Penn State by claiming the prestigious award, Zemaitis notched a game-high 25 kills to go along with her 25 digs and .345 hitting percentage.

"I don't find consolation in that," Zemaitis said. "I'm just really proud of my team. We could've quit it three, but we didn't."