Fisher, Wildman Lead No. 11 Penn State Past Saint Francis

Story posted February 4, 2021 in CommRadio, Sports by Matt Scalzo

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — After taking care of No. 13 Ohio State last week, No. 11 Penn State extended its winning streak to three games by defeating Saint Francis in straight sets.

The Nittany Lions came into Friday’s match at 3-1; Saint Francis, on the other hand, came in on a four-game losing streak and was 1-6 on the year.

Penn State took advantage of service and attack errors as it did against Ohio State. Saint Francis had 13 attack errors to go along with 14 service errors.

Leading the way for the Nittany Lions was junior Cal Fisher, who was dominant, racking up 18 points and 15 kills.

It wasn’t just Fisher who played well; junior Brett Wildman added 13 points with nine kills, while junior Canyon Tuman had 6 1/2 points and five kills. Cole Bogner also added 32 assists for Penn State.

The Nittany Lions continued to do well with serving, as they finished the game with seven service aces, three of which came from Wildman.

“Our serving was good for us,” head coach Mark Pavlik said. “It forced Saint Francis to stay back.”

It was a tough night for Saint Francis, as the lone bright spot was Michael Fisher, who contributed 13 1/2 points and 11 kills. The next leading scorer for the Red Flash had just seven points.

“Tonight was a continuation of what we saw over the weekend,” Pavlik said. He also added that he was pleased with how his team played Friday night even when it trailed in the third set.

Pavlik said that the team doesn’t care about what the score is, they’re just going to keep working until they settle the team down. The Nittany Lions certainly seemed settled down after a timeout was called with Saint Francis up 13-10 during the third set, as Penn State finished the match strong with another set victory.

Penn State has looked good so far this season, and it will look to keep its winning streak as it goes for the sweep of Saint Francis on Saturday.

 

Matt Scalzo is a freshman majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email mms7477@psu.edu.

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Matt Scalzo

Third Year / Broadcast Journalism

Matthew “Matt” Scalzo is a third-year from Ridgefield, Connecticut majoring in broadcast journalism. Matt is a Basketball Insider, broadcaster and writer for the sports department. With CommRadio he has called football, hockey, basketball, baseball, volleyball and lacrosse games. Matt has called matches for Penn State Women’s Volleyball on both TV and radio. He has written countless articles and appeared on podcasts, live shows and is a host of the Chi-Town Sit-Down with Thomas English, which covers everything Chicago sports. Matt spent the 2022 summer as the Drector of Broadcasting & Media for the Sanford Mainers in the NECBL. If you want to contact him, email him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).