Penn State women’s volleyball continues hot streak in Tiger Challenge
Experience might just be the name of the game.
For the second straight weekend, Penn State, led in large part due to the contributions of upperclassmen, took care of business.
The Nittany Lions came out victorious in three matches at the Tiger Challenge in Baton Rouge to extend their season-opening winning streak to six matches.
Penn State opened play with a four-set match, the longest of the weekend for the blue and white, against Iowa State on Friday.
The Nittany Lions took advantage of those struggles of the Cyclones, who earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament a season ago, in set one, but fell behind early in set two.
Penn State would not quit mounting a comeback led by the experienced combo of graduate student Katie Clark and sophomore Anjelina Starck.
The Nittany Lions roared back, coming within one point, but would ultimately fall short.
From there on out, Clark, Starck and the rest of the Nittany Lions found a spark to win eight straight sets to finish their weekend.
The former TCU Horned Frog, Clark, who was making her first start donning the blue and white, finished the match with 11 kills and four blocks. Kashauna Williams, a graduate transfer from Long Beach State, contributed 13 kills.
After a bit of rest, the Nittany Lions came out hunting for their second win of the day, this time against the Troy Trojans.
Fittingly, Penn State opened set number one on a 5-0 run, indicative of why they would be well on their way to opening their season 5-0.
The run was propelled by Starck, junior Taylor Trammell and freshman Gillian Grimes, who recorded the straight service aces.
Despite the Trojans putting up a valiant effort, the Nittany Lions were able to work their way straight to a three-set sweep.
Starck finished the match with 10 kills, and Trammell added nine kills of her own, but it was Zoe Weatherington who led the Nittany Lions for the second straight match.
Weatherington, the senior transfer from Utah, led with 15 kills against Iowa State, 11 against Troy and added six against LSU.
It would be Weatherington’s sixth kill of the match that finished off the three-set sweep over the host Tigers. It did not come easily as their first sweep, as both the second and third sets needed extra points.
Starck continued her successful weekend, putting up 13 kills, while Williams added 11 kills, and Trammel was third on the team with eight.
Seleisa Elisaia, the graduate transfer from CSU Bakersfield, finished with 40 assists. Elisaia has been quietly creating on the offensive side for the Nittany Lions and garnered Big Ten Setter of the Week honors.
Elisaia is first in the Big Ten and eleventh in the nation averaging 11.24 assists per set this season.
On the defensive side, junior libero Maddy Bilinovic showed her ability to keep the opposition off the board. While her play may have flown under the radar of the headline makers, Bilinovic had another career weekend.
Bilinovic recorded 23 combined digs in the first two matches of the weekend and would go on for a career-high 21 kills against LSU. She broke her career-high of 19, which she set last weekend against West Virginia.
Gillian Grimes added two service aces in the blue and white’s third contest of the weekend, but outside of her, the Nittany Lions have relied heavily on the leadership and presence to get off to their fast start.
With the veterans leading the way, the Katie Schumacher-Cawley era seems to have avoided the growing pains associated with turnover at the head coach position.
The experience will be relied upon again this weekend as the No. 20 Nittany Lions hit the road to face No. 11 Stanford and No. 18 Oregon in the Big Ten/Pac 12 Challenge.
Justin Ciavolella is a second-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jtc5751@psu.edu.
