There would be no Cinderellas at Rec Hall this weekend.

Instead of there being a glass slipper fit for an underdog, the Penn State women's volleyball team, led by freshman standout Nicole Fawcett, acted as a giant boot, stomping the outclassed competition in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

The numbers are staggering.

The second-seeded Nittany Lions (31-2, 20-0 Big Ten) allowed their opponents -- Binghamton on Friday and Long Island on Saturday -- an average of just 13.16 points per game in sweeps of both teams. Against the Bearcats, Fawcett recorded 18 kills. The entire Binghamton team registered only 16 kills on the night.

Binghamton's libero, Jaclyn Strader, was left with no answer but to throw her hands up in frustration after numerous Penn State shots were fired to the ground around her.

"It was very difficult, especially with Nicole Fawcett," Strader said of trying to track the shots coming from the other side of the net. "She has so many shots it's hard to know exactly where she's going."

Fawcett was going anywhere she pleased. The freshman outside hitter set an NCAA Tournament record by posting an unheard of .889 hitting percentage on Saturday. For the weekend, the Big Ten Freshman of the Year recorded 34 kills at a .791 clip, with nothing but goose eggs in the error column.

Penn State head coach Russ Rose was more concerned with the general well-being of the contestants than with Fawcett's run for the record books.

"[Friday] night I thought she could have set a record in a match, but I took her out because I didn't want her to hurt anybody," Rose said. "[Saturday] she hit even better."

But the Blackbirds and Bearcats were just happy to be there, even if the experience was comparable to that of a live fish being fed to a hungry Shamu at Sea World.

"We are honored just to play Penn State, they're one of the best teams in the country," Binghamton coach Glenn Kiriyama said.

Long Island head coach Toby Rens also took it all in stride.

"If they were in the Northeast Conference they'd probably win that as well," Rens opined with a smirk, alluding to Penn State's dominance over the Big Ten this year.

Even Rose, with the exception of a few times during the second game against Long Island, was more at ease this weekend than he would normally be. After Friday's win, Rose was asked what Long Island would bring to the table on Saturday.

"I thought they played really hard [in the first round against Cornell]," Rose said. "To be honest with you, I was watching the women's soccer game [on television], so I didn't see as much of that match as I probably should have."

The Lions, in all likelihood, have seen the last of the powerless fish on their schedule. Though records were broken and stats were padded, this weekend provided little in the way of challenges. Penn State -- like it has for so much of the season -- methodically overpowered, outhustled, outsmarted and overmatched the opposition, and looked great doing it.

Fawcett and the Lions will try to keep it up on Friday, when they host Tennessee in the Regional Semifinal.

"We didn't have the toughest first and second-round opponents," Rose said. "But it doesn't take away from the fact that we're playing good volleyball."