It was the first time the Lions had made such a comeback since 1991, when they felled, fittingly enough, Wisconsin, who is 0-12 at Rec Hall.
"It's a terrific win against a great opponent," said head coach Russ Rose, who is no slouch in coaching annals, compiling the highest winning percentage (.849) of any active coach in his 22 years.
But his team looked like they would mail in another lackluster performance against the Badgers (17-3, 11-1) who beat them 3-0 in Madison on Oct. 5. The Lions were a step behind the powerful Badgers, who dictated the pace of the game by spreading their sets. Setter Lizzy Fitzgerald still relied on middle hitter Sherisa Livingston for five kills in each of those first two games, and Penn State seemed demoralized by their inability to stop the towering senior.
The Lions played catch up all of game one, and knotted the score at 19. However, they immediately folded in a pressure situation, something they have done more often than not this season.
So entering the break between games two and three, the Lions were understandably testy. A senior regime headed by Katie Schumacher that was a key part of Penn State's first national championship in 1999 was fed up with the uninspired, unfocused effort.
"It was good to see a little fight in them," said Rose, who told his team to focus their intensity on a common goal.
And instead of his usual rant, Rose somehow stayed calm and told his team it had a chance to win.
"We knew what they were doing," said Rose. "And we thought we had a chance to win."
A new team emerged from the Penn State locker room, one with all the intangibles that Rose said he couldn't find after a loss to Michigan last Saturday.
Junior outside hitter Mishka Levy, much maligned after struggling early to live up to her preseason all-Big Ten selection, sparked the Lions' resurgence. She followed her 21-kill performance in a 3-0 win against Northwestern (8-11, 4-8) on Friday (30-25, 30-21, 30-23) with 18 kills on a team-high 51 attacks against the Badgers. Facing the huge block of Livingston (6-foot-1) and Amy Hultgren (6-foot-3), Levy stepped back and picked her spots from the middle of the floor.
Her most significant contribution came on defense, which has been so weak at times that Rose did not feel comfortable keeping her on the floor. She tied Shannon Bortner, who moved from the outside back to the setter position, for the team lead in digs with 15.
Saturday night marked the first time that the Lions' dynamic duo of Levy and Schumacher (15 kills, 11 digs) were both making plays.
"It's always nice to have both of us taking big swings," said Schumacher. "But we played hard, and it took a team effort to win."
Though the middle blockers were not an offensive presence for the Lions, Nadia Edwards and Cara Smith contained Livingston, limiting her to just 11 kills after game two. Most importantly, they drew blockers from the outside, opening one-on-one situations up for their outside hitters.
The most surprising of whom was freshman Ashley Pederson, who tallied eight huge kills. She followed kills by Levy and Schumacher with her own smash to put the Lions ahead 25-22 in the fourth game. She got the next point and one more before taking a soft set from Bortner and crushing it past Erin Byrd for the final point of the game.
Bortner's work was the least obvious and the most important. She stepped in for Jess Hayden and set the Lions to their most dynamic performance of the season.
"Shannon took a good game plan and made it work," Rose said.
Like old time Big Ten college football, there wasn't much to either team's game plan — smash the ball past the other team.
"That's Big Ten volleyball," said Schumacher, the most enthusiastic of Penn State's pounders. "You take big swings."
In the end, the Lions simply did what they needed to do to win, and for the first time this season they showed the type of character that is integral to great teams.
