Louisville, Ky. — Penn State won its eighth national volleyball championship and first in a decade with a four-set victory against host Louisville on Sunday at the KFC Yum! Center, crowning Katie Schumacher-Cawley as the first woman ever to coach a team to the national championship in NCAA volleyball.
The Nittany Lions beat the Cardinals 25-23, 32-34, 25-20, 25-17 to finish the season 35-2 and complete a remarkable run at the Final Four after their reverse sweep against fellow Big Ten co-champion Nebraska in the semifinal round on Thursday.
A crowd of 21,860 attended the match, a record for postseason volleyball, taking the total for the two days in Louisville above 43,000.
Senior outside hitter Jess Mruzik was unstoppable for Penn State, recording 27 kills. Camryn Hannah slammed her 19th kill of the match off the Louisville block for the final point.
The Nittany Lions played this year for Schumacher-Cawley. The 44-year-old coach announced her breast cancer diagnosis in September and did not miss a single practice while directing her alma mater as she managed chemotherapy sessions.
Schumacher-Cawley won a championship as a player at Penn State in 1999, the school’s first of seven under legendary former coach Russ Rose. Rose retired in 2021 and handed the program to his assistant, Schumacher-Cawley, who had coached Illinois-Chicago for eight seasons before returning to PSU in 2018.
Penn State had not advanced to a Final Four since 2014 when it defeated BYU for the championship.
Louisville (30-6) played Sunday without All-America outside hitter Anna DeBeer. DeBeer, Louisville resident and top attacker for coach Dani Busboom Kelly, suffered an ankle injury Thursday in the Cardinals’ four-set win against Pittsburgh.
The Cardinals struggled to find offensive balance without DeBeer. Charitie Luper, the 5-foot-9 senior, slugged 21 kills, including nine in the captivating second set as Louisville fought off 10 set points for Penn State.
In that second set, Louisville came back from being down 17-10 and 24-19. The Cardinals drew even at 24 for the first time since the score was tied at 1 and took their first lead at 30-29. Louisville won the set on a block by Hannah Sherman and Sofia Maldonado Diaz of Penn State’s Hannah.
The first two sets featured 21 ties before the Nittany Lions asserted control in the third, ultimately going on to win it all.
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(Photo: Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos)
