Lady Spikers fall short of title

By CARLA MOTKO
Collegian Staff Writer

There's one major rule a team can never forget when playing in a game -- you have to be in it to win it.

When the No. 2 Penn State women's volleyball team began the final match of the NCAA National Championship against No. 1 Long Beach State Dec. 19, at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wisc., it looked as if the Lady Lions had forgotten that. They suffered a season-ending loss to the 49ers in five games (3-15, 10-15, 15-13, 16-14, 12-15). The match lasted a grueling two-and-a-half hours.

That loss came after Penn State overturned No. 3 Nebraska in the semi-final match Dec. 17 in four games (15-11, 15-8, 8-15, 15-11).

"I would have liked us to win the national championship, to play our best and for the players to hold their heads high," Penn State coach Russ Rose said. "A couple people weren't focused and weren't ready to win the national championship."

Never in the history of NCAA volleyball had there been an undefeated national champion. However, both Penn State (35-1) and Long Beach State (36-0) entered the tournament with perfect 35-0 records, and the NCAA record-breaking 13,194 spectators knew only one would come out with a perfect 36-0 season.

It would not be Penn State.

The scene in Madison was all too familiar for the Lions. Last year, Penn State wound its way through a difficult regular season to end up in the finals against Stanford -- a match the Lions lost in five games despite a two-game comeback.

The Lions, led by senior outside hitter Christy Cochran, were determined at the start of the match not to let the title slip away again, but the 49ers had other plans. Long Beach State setter Misty May overwhelmed the Lions with her abilities not only as a setter, but also as a hitter and a server, and allowed the 49ers to cruise through the first game, 15-3.

Penn State's 18 hitting errors and .063 hitting percentage through the first two games was a huge factor as it dropped the second game 15-10.

Through the entire match, Penn State looked as if it was trying to keep up with Long Beach State instead of trying to surpass the 49ers. The Lions struggled to find effective hitters whereas Long Beach State's hitters had free reign of the court.

Veronica Walls, an outside hitter for Long Beach State, led the 49ers with a team-high 19 kills and a stunning .455 hitting percentage, which far surpassed any of the Lions' hitters. Middle hitter Lauren Cacciamani's .377 percentage was the best any of the Lions could muster.

"I was kind of shocked that we came out and played the way we did," Cochran said. "It's not like we weren't ready. It's strange because there's no real explanation for it. We were just out of sync."

Despite the many factors stacked against the Lions, they proved their right to be in the finals by not letting up. More often than not during the regular season, if Long Beach State went up by two games the fate of the third game already was sealed.

Penn State was too accustomed to dishing out 3-0 losses and had no intentions of suffering one itself. Led by Cacciamani, Penn State mounted an attack that carried them through the third and fourth games with scores of 15-13 and 16-14, respectively. Cacciamani had a career-high 33 kills for Penn State -- highest of either team.

"Lauren was the best player on the floor by a long shot," Rose said.

Cacciamani's success carried over into the rally game as Penn State took a comfortable 8-2 lead, but the long match had tired out the Lions. A Penn State service error gave May the serve for Long Beach and marked the beginning of the end. Despite several attempts by Rose to slow the tempo of the game, Long Beach closed the match in dominant fashion, 15-12.

According to Rose, the Lions weren't in their regular groove all match. For them to make it into a fifth game with less than their best play was astounding, but the outcome was not what they were looking for.

"I'd say the season was a success, but it just hurts," Cochran said. "I didn't want to stop playing volleyball and I definitely didn't want to end on a loss. I guess it just wasn't in the cards."