Heading into his 25th season as Penn State Women's Volleyball coach, Russ Rose and the rest of his team had many questions that needed to be answered.
Could the Nittany Lions replace All-American Mishka Levy and All-Big Ten honoree Robyn Goukas? Will the freshmen step up to the challenge of filling the voids left by graduating seniors?
And will a team that is infamous for its lack of jelling come together in time for this season?
Thus far, it seems that all of those questions can be answered affirmatively as the Lions swept through the Maine "Sea Sun" Invitational, beating all four teams they faced with apparent ease.
Preseason All-Big Ten team member Cara Smith showed that she would try to take over as the Lions' go-to-hitter, winning MVP honors for the Invitational. She hit .521 for the weekend and tallied 57 kills.
On Friday morning the Lions officially began their 2003 campaign by dismantling the Rhode Island Rams, 3-0 (30-19, 30-21, 30-21).
Penn State was led by the efforts of Smith, who finished the game with 14 kills while hitting .609. Smith's big game, though, was overshadowed by the inspiring play of two freshman, Ashley Fidler and Cassie Salyer.
Fidler, a Wauconda, Ill. native, had an impressive Nittany Lion debut as she hit 13 kills and helped Penn State out hit the Rams, .333 to .049. Defensively, Salyer stepped up to the plate in a major way with a match-high 11 blocks to go along with her seven kills.
Later that same day the Lions played their toughest match of the event against Colorado.
After losing the first game to the Buffaloes, Rose woke his team up and the Lions, led once again by Smith, powered their way to a 3-1 victory (26-30, 30-22, 30-27, 30-25). Smith had a career-high 23 kills in the win while being backed up by junior Ashley Pederson (14 kills) and senior Erin Iceman (10 kills). Iceman looked back in form after missing the majority of last season due to ACL surgery.
The Lions other preseason All-Big Ten team member Sam Tortorello led the offense with 46 assists.
"This was definitely the best way we could have started," Tortorello said. "Colorado gave us our best fight, but we got through it in the end."
On Saturday it was more of the same as Penn State swept both Southeast Missouri State and host team, the Black Bears of Maine.
Pederson this time led the Lions offensive attack, compiling 14 kills against the Otahkians. Also, redshirt freshman Kim Holm turned some heads adding 9 kills in the win.
As a team Penn State out hit Southeast Missouri, .457 to.198.
In the invitational finale the Lions showed that they were ever so thankful to the University of Maine for hosting the event by completely dominating every aspect of play in a extremely convincing win (30-15, 30-14, 30-11).
Smith was joined on the All-Invitational team by Tortorello who finished the weekend with an eye-popping 178 assists in just four games.
"Obviously, my first goal is to win the tournament," a modest Tortorello said after the weekend's events. "It's not even an option to think of personal stats first."
So with one weekend's worth of games behind the team and a bag full of questions answered the Penn State women's volleyball team can now look ahead for what has the chance to be one eventful season.
