Pepperdine falters in national title match
With Pepperdine’s Paul Carroll on a scoring blitz near the end of the third game, Penn State’s Matt Anderson and his teammates decided enough was enough.
The Nittany Lions blocked Carroll’s next two kill attempts and, with that game saved and the momentum regained, Penn State went on to beat Pepperdine and win the NCAA Division I men’s volleyball championship Saturday.
Penn State won three games to one at UC Irvine’s Bren Center, giving the school -- which finished the season 30-1 -- its first national volleyball title in 14 years and only the second in the school’s history.
Penn State and Pepperdine began the final seeded No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, and appropriately their match was close.
But Penn State’s blocking prowess and balanced offense again paid off. The team had a season-high 19 blocks and four of its players scored kills in the double digits -- including the 6-foot-10 Anderson, who was selected the match’s most outstanding player.
“Our blocking defense once again allowed us to score some points,” said Penn State Coach Mark Pavlik.
Marv Dunphy, Pepperdine’s coach, said, “I have to give a lot of credit to Penn State. When it was time, they made the plays. They had some good firepower.”
Anderson had 29 kills, but the high producer was Carroll, a left-handed junior from Australia who had 35.
Eight of those came in the first game, which Pepperdine won, 30-27. Penn State rebounded to win the second game, 33-31, and was leading late in the third when Anderson, Max Lipsitz and Luke Murray stopped Carroll from scoring again and kept Pepperdine at bay.
Penn State won that game, 30-25, and then finished off the Waves in the fourth, 30-23.
“Any time you can block a player, it takes them out of their offense, takes them out of their flow, especially a big hitter like Paul,” Anderson said of Carroll. “He was really beating us early.”
Penn State reached the final by winning the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. tournament last month and then beating Ohio State in a semifinal Thursday night.
Pepperdine qualified by beating Long Beach State in a semifinal after winning the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament.
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