The Boilermakers (10-4, 3-1) came into town Friday coming off of an upset win over No. 18 Minnesota. That same Purdue team didn't show up against the Lions.
The Boilermakers had five service errors, 35 hitting errors and a .101 hitting percentage. Leah Wischmeier (.273) was the only player to have over 10 attack attempts and hit over .200.
"That's one of the things about the Big Ten that you really can't put your hand on," Penn State women's volleyball coach Russ Rose said. "You catch people when they're playing well and sometimes you catch people when they're not playing well."
Penn State combated Purdue's weak play with a strong all-around game.
The Lions' defense recorded 42 digs and 11 blocks. Cara Smith (12 kills, hit .800) and Erin Iceman (12 kills, .458) led the attack.
Iceman had a strong weekend for the Lions. In the two matches, she had 27 kills and made just four hitting errors on 49 attempts.
"Ice had two back-to-back games that were great," Rose said. "I'll be interested to see if anybody in the conference played any better than she did this weekend."
Penn State picked up where it left off the day before when it faced the Hoosiers (9-6, 2-2) in front of a crowd of 4,537 on Saturday. As a team, the Lions hit .391. Along with Iceman's great game, Cassy Salyer contributed seven kills on just nine attempts.
"I thought it was our most complete game, to date," Rose said.
The day before, Rose called Indiana's Christina Archibald one of the top three or four athletes in Big Ten volleyball. Archibald did lead her team with 12 kills, but hit just .025. The Hoosiers hit a measly .080 as a team. Once again it was a case of catching a team not playing well, because it wasn't what the Lions expected.
"We were expecting them to play real well," outside hitter Syndie Nadeau said. "I guess they don't play as well on the road, maybe. The crowd was a little intimidating."
With the whole season not played within the confines of Rec Hall, Penn State knows it will have to play with the same effectiveness when it doesn't have the luxury of a home crowd. That mentality will come in handy as the team hits the road to play Illinois and Northwestern next.
"It's always nice to play in front of a huge crowd," Iceman said. "We should be able to play this well despite how many people we have."
