LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Anna DeBeer recorded 14 kills before leaving with a right ankle injury, Payton Peterson recorded consecutive aces in her place and top-seeded Louisville beat No. 1 overall seed Pittsburgh 3-1 on Thursday night to reach its second NCAA volleyball championship in three years.
The host Cardinals (30-5) stopped a four-match losing streak against the Panthers, including two this season, and will face Penn State in Sunday’s championship. The Nittany Lions rallied from an 0-2 deficit to beat Nebraska in five sets. The match will feature two women's coaches for the first time with Louisville's Dani Busboom-Kelly and Penn State's Katie Schumacher-Cawley.
All-American outside hitter/right setter Olivia Babcock had 33 kills for the Panthers (33-2), whose 18-match winning streak was snapped. They entered as the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed and played in their fourth consecutive national semifinal, but couldn’t follow their strong opening set in which they hit .373 with nine kills from Babcock.
“We beat them in transition by an enormous margin, but they were absolutely unstoppable on the first ball,” Pitt coach Dan Fisher said. “We just couldn’t get enough of those. And then you guys all saw what happened in the second, third set, and it was hard for us to swallow.”
Louisville overcame a 25-21 opening-set loss to beat Pitt 25-23, 29-27 and 25-17, taking control after DeBeer went down early in the fourth set, with what a university official after the match called a right ankle injury.
The graduate All-American hitter was helped off the court and into the locker room before returning to the sideline and cheering on her teammates. Cardinals coach Dani Busboom-Kelly said afterward she wasn’t sure about DeBeer’s availability for the championship game.
Sofia Maldonado Diaz and Charitie Luper also recorded 14 kills each for the Cardinals, who hit .320 in the match and .425 on kills. They never trailed in the final set, but found another gear after their star player left the floor with Louisville up 2-0.
Peterson, a freshman, took her place and later registered three consecutive service points, including back-to-back aces for a 9-3 advantage. Louisville eventually built an 18-10 cushion on the way to a decisive clinching win.
“At first I thought when she went down, I thought ‘She’s going to be fine, she’s going to get back up,’” said Peterson, who had 4.5 points. “And when it hit me that she was not gonna come back, I wanted to do this for her. For that to be her last game, I didn’t want that to happen.”
Nayelis Cabello had 44 assists and Cara Cresse six blocks for Louisville, which had 17 kills with just one error in the final set.
The teams went back and forth in the opening set before Pitt broke a 14-all tie with the first of several small spurts taking control with six straight points, Louisville avoided four set points before Babcock’s kill sealed it with a Rachel Fairbanks assist.