Pitt volleyball to face No. 1 Penn State in NCAA Tournament

Pitt’s volleyball team advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament with a win over VCU on Friday. The Panthers’ next task will be a tall one as they will play No. 1 overall seed Penn State on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. You can watch the game on the Big Ten Network.

Penn State, as expected, advanced after beating Howard in the first round. The Nittany Lions had a little bit of trouble, though, dropping the second set before winning, 3-1. Penn State is as good as advertised and is 29-1 on the year. Their lone loss was more than respectable. Even though they were swept, they lost to Nebraska, who is ranked No. 6. The first set went to overtime with Nebraska winning, 26-24. The Cornhuskers took the next two sets, 25-19 and 25-20.

Since then, the Nittany Lions have steamrolled the competition and are a legitimate threat to win the NCAA championship.

Last year, the two teams met in the second round as well with Pitt actually taking the first set putting Penn State on upset alert. But the Nittany Lions rebounded to take the next three and end the threat.

It will be interesting to see what kind of crowd is there for the game. It will be, as last year was, heavily in favorite of the Nittany Lions. But the Panthers had a decent amount at the VCU match last night and hopefully a good contingent can be there again.

I won’t be posting an official gamethread for tonight but if anyone is watching and wants to comment here during the match, feel free.

Be sure to join Cardiac Hill's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter@PittPantherBlog for our regular updates on Pitt athletics. Follow the author and founder/editor @AnsonWhaley.