By John Reid
Card Reider
Main Twitter @cardreider1; also @cardreider
It was a near-perfect seeding by the NCAA women’s volleyball selection committee. Three of the top four seeds made it to Thursday’s Final Four in Pittsburgh. Two – No. 1 Baylor and No. 4 Wisconsin – meet in the first semifinal at 4 p.m. No. 3 Stanford is matched up with No. 7 Minnesota at 6 p.m. Final is on Saturday.
Minnesota beat Louisville in the Austin Regional final with the Cardinals upsetting No. 2 Texas in the regional semifinal. It was that close to being 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 3 Final Four semifinals.
Stanford is the defending champion. After Penn State lost to the Cardinal in three sets in the Stanford Regional final, Nittany Lions coach Russ Rose said, “Before the year started, I thought Wisconsin was the best team in the Big 10 and Stanford was the best team in the country. I’m sticking to those thoughts.”
Rose, who just ended his 41st season at Penn State, knows his stuff. Rose is sitting on 1,299 wins, the most in Div. I coaching history. The Nittany Lions have won seven NCAA titles, four in a row from 2007 to 2010, last winning it all in 2014.
Stanford coach Kevin Hambly hasn’t broken stride since taking over for John Dunning three years ago. Hambly inherited the greatest core of players in Stanford history, has been to three straight final fours, losing in the semifinal two years ago, winning the whole shebang last year.
Seniors Kathryn Plummer, Jenna Gray, Morgan Hentz, Audriana Fitzmorris and Caitlin Keefe have been to the Final Four four straight years. Senior transfer Madeleine Gates, so vital to the Cardinal’s success this year, is making her first appearance in a Final Four.
The Cardinal does not have a pushover in the Gophers, who downed Stanford 3-1 back on Sept. 14 at the Big-10/Pac-12 Challenge at Penn State. Rose chimed in on the matchup.
“Minnesota and Stanford played in our gym and we saw them play,” Rose said “When they played, it was the night after we played Stanford in a very hard match with a big crowd. Stanford had an early match the next day against Minnesota. I didn’t think that Stanford was at full-strength the next day.”
For the record, the Cardinal defeated Penn State 3-1.
“Minnesota is playing very well,” Rose said. “The two coaches know each other very well. The players are familiar with each other. The teams are accustomed to teeing it up and getting after it. It will be good volleyball.”
BLOCKS: Minnesota is the country’s No. 8 blocking team, while Stanford is ranked 9th. An interesting note, the Nittany Lions, who notoriously block well, had just 1.0 block against the Cardinal.
“Penn State is a really strong blocking team,” Plummer said. “We go up against a strong blocking team in practice. It’s a testament to our passers. It’s hard to know where we are going to go when we have three outstanding attackers. Just give us a bitsy room to score.”
“We were in system a lot,” Hambly said. “A lot of it has to do with passing. Jenna (Gray) did a nice job of putting them in good situations and they played with confidence. Penn State is a really good blocking team. They only had only one block because of us isolating them. We were smart with some of our shots. It was high-level volleyball.”
ALL-TOURNEY: As a media member, I was asked to pick an all-tourney team. Due to the structure, it was, mostly, easy. One player from Cincinnati and Utah were included. The Bearcats Jordan Thompson, who had 30 kills against Penn State, was an easy pick. So was Utah’s Dani Drews, who led her team in kills. Thompson and Drews are the respective 1-2 kill leaders in the nation, a nice bonus for fans in attendance.
The runner-up – Penn State – was given two players. The ones I voted for – Tori Gorrell and Serena Gray – were both selected. The other option was Jonni Parker, who had a fine regional.
The winner – Stanford – had three selections, including the Most Outstanding Player. Plummer, with 53 combined kills in two matches – was the obvious choice. I had Jenna Gray next and libero Morgan Hentz third. I had to think about the third pick – Gates, Meghan McClure and Fitzmorris also had fine tournaments. My thinking with Hentz is that Stanford would have had a hard time getting to Saturday without Hentz, who saved several points in the win over Utah. Gates, who made it, along with Hentz, was very deserving.
HOST SITE: PPG Paints Arena is site of this year’s Final Four. Omaha, Neb., and Columbus, Ohio, are the respective host cities for 2020 and 2021.
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