CUBuffs.com: No. 24 Buffs Put Up Fight But Fall To Top-Ranked Penn State (Volleyball)

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CU put up a great fight against top-ranked Penn State, but were unable to pull off the upset, falling 3-0 on Friday night in the Big Ten/Pac...

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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The No. 24 University of Colorado volleyball team put up a great fight against top-ranked Penn State on Friday night, but were unable to pull off the upset, falling 3-0 (25-19, 25-21, 25-18) in the Big Ten/Pac-12 Challenge.

Senior Alexis Austin led both teams with 10 kills in the effort, while sophomore Gabby Simpson had eight kills. The Buffs were held to a .055 hitting efficiency, recording 35 kills and 29 errors on 109 attacks. Penn State didn’t fair that much better, hitting .172. The Nittany Lions recorded 29 kills, six less than the Buffs, but also committed 13 errors on 93 attacks. Haleigh Washington led PSU with eight kills.

Defensively PSU posted 13.0 blocks, while CU tallied 3.0 in the contest. PSU’s Heidi Thelen led both teams with seven block assists and the Buffs were led by freshman Naghede Abu with three block assists. The Buffs did have the advantage in digs (42-33) and were led by Simpson’s 15. Freshman Abbie D’Agosta had a career-best 12 digs and junior Cierra Simpson added nine digs.

The Buffs (2-2) are no strangers to playing top-ranked opponents and gave the Nittany Lions (4-0) a tough test. They didn’t go away despite being down in the match. In every set, the Buffs made great efforts to compete with PSU, but just couldn't overcome the early deficit in front of PSU’s crowd of over 3,000.
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[buffgal]

From what I heard with my ears (didn't see it), the Buffs did not put up a great fight last night. Most of the errors were of their own making.

 

[AztecBuff]

From what I heard with my ears (didn't see it), the Buffs did not put up a great fight last night. Most of the errors were of their own making.

I'm sure the Buffs were going for the win, and they're disappointed that quite a few errors were made. But one thing I've been thinking since the match has been over for a bit is that those Penn State audio announcers were in general VERY negative about everything (including their own team) unless it was a PERFECT play, so I don't know how much of my impressions of the Buffs' play yesterday was tainted by that. (Just looking at the line score without having listened to the audio and seeing the Buffs averaging ~20 points per set against the #1 team in the country, while still trying to work 3 freshmen into the lineup, I would think "too bad, but could have been worse".)

 

[AztecBuff]

For anyone who wanted to see the Penn State loss themselves and have the time at some point, a replay of the match has been put on Youtube by the NCAA. (Unfortunately, it's a pretty short video due to PSU's dominance , only ~ an hour and 12 minutes.) Definitely looks like Penn State has a great venue for volleyball. (EDIT- just want to give Disc808 in the volleytalk forum thanks for the heads up that these Big 10/ Pac 12 challenge matches are available on youtube.)