I'm still half-laughing, half-reeling at how spectacularly wrong I got my picks from Thursday, so in lieu of any attempt at full-on analysis, I thought it would be most enjoyable and worth my time to spend a few moments gushing about the stars of tonight's championship final.
Penn State
Deja McClendon has been on fire this postseason, in quite literally all facets of the game. You have to think if she'd been playing this well all season, she'd have been first-team All-American rather than "just" second-team, so she gets major props for upping her game all the more when it counts the most. The only four-time All-American honouree in the class of 2013 (one first-team selection, two second-team, one third-team), she's got to be the frontrunner for tournament Most Outstanding Player right now. Excelling in all aspects of the game in her final college matches — serving, hitting, blocking, passing, all of it — McClendon is a threat right now in any rotation, and has put the capper on a fine career.
Micha Hancock's been doing what she does. One of the nation's best servers, she used that skill to near-perfection in each of the first two sets of the second national semi on Thursday night. Big service runs will not only break the score wide open, they crush the resolve of the opposing team, and that's exactly what happened to the homestanding Huskies. It's hard not to be impressed with Hancock's on-2 hitting, and oh yeah, her setting. I especially enjoyed one rally Thursday night where Hancock, in the front row, jumped quickly for an on-2 hit, which was dug and returned, and then jumped quickly just the same….but set the ball to the right pin that time. It drew a blocker, and got Ariel Scott a 1-on-1, and she doesn't lose many of those. Barring another freak injury like we saw in last year's Final Four, Hancock should be a big key for the Nittany Lions tonight.
As an opposite, Ariel Scott's game has been a tad more easy to nail down than that of McClendon or Hancock. Her task is simple (simple to define, anyway) — hit. And block when available to help out, but that's a bonus. Scott swung like a middle in Penn State's rout win over Washington Thursday, getting 10 kills on 18 errorless swings. That's a massive night at the office in terms of efficiency for a pin, even in (especially in?) such a short match. She doesn't really do much of anything in the back row, be it pass, serve, or dig, but she sure can hit. She's the team's leading scorer, boasting a season efficiency of .288. Much like Texas' Sha'Dare McNeal last season, I'm not sure I'd expect to see Scott on a stage this bright again in the future. But again much like McNeal, I imagine she can make a fine living playing the game (and McNeal certainly has, as she now plays professionaly in Italy). With just one match left in her college career, Scott will leave it all on the court tonight, no question about that.
Katie Slay stands out like a giant in a sport not exactly populated by shrimps. The 6-foot-6 senior ranked third nationally this season, averaging five blocks every three sets (1.67 per set) and has been doing that well if not better in the latter stages of the NCAA tournament, against (ostensibly) the best competition her team would have faced this year. Another player with a bit of a one-note skillset (but what a note it is), it'll be interesting to see how well Slay's game translates to the international stage, after one last college match tonight.
Wisconsin
Lauren Carlini runs the show for the Badgers, one of the most exciting setters and new freshmen on the NCAA season. Many feel she was robbed of the national Freshman of the Year award (which went to USC's Ebony Nwanebu) and maybe even of first-team All-American status. I've only had the opportunity to watch her play in the last few rounds of the tournament, but even in just that brief time it's clear how she makes the extraordinary look routine. Bad pass? No problem. Her on-2 hitting is so good that coach Kelly Sheffield has actually tried to convince her to do it more often than she does. With all the praise PSU's Hancock quite rightly gets, she may not even be the best setter on the court tonight. Carlini's got an amazing future ahead of her, and if it starts with a national title, it may end with rewriting the history books.
Pint-sized Deme Morales has been making bunches of headlines lately, for being as successful as she is despite her small stature. Standing just 5-foot-7, if you saw her and Carlini stand side by side without knowing anything about the positions they played, you'd be quite forgiven to wrongly tab which was the setter and which the outside hitter. Morales is probably the very smartest hitter you'll see tonight; you can't be 5-foot-7 and go up against blockers as much as a foot taller than you and expect to survive going straight at them. So Morales has to see all the angles, have shots in her repertoire that other hitters don't, and 'tool the block' (does this even have an exact definition?) with expertise. Morales' style and size (more to the point, lack of) is also pretty conducive to errors — she had 13 against 14 kills in the Texas match — so she'll need to stay as clean as possible to give Wisconsin any kind of a chance tonight.
Ellen Chapman (#20; right of image) has been an unsung hero to an unsung team. She's the much more prototypical outside hitter than Morales, standing a hearty 6-4. No one's really devoted much airtime or column inches to Chapman, but she's actually the most prolific scorer for the season on either side of the net in tonight's final, and is among the best servers. You'll be wowed by some of Morales' more spectacular kills, to be sure, but don't look past Chapman's backbone-of-the-offence hitting and serving. Without it, Wisconsin wouldn't be where they are.
Dominique Thompson gives the Badgers a nice sense of balance, as she's a noticeably undersized middle (at 5-11) to go with Morales as a noticeably undersized pin hitter. She hits a lot more frequently and somewhat less efficiently than a prototypical middle, but you can't really argue with the blocking production (precisely 1 per set — 142 blocks in 142 sets — entering tonight). She was one of three Badgers in double-figures in kills in the Texas match (the other two are also on this page) and has just been getting better the more the season goes on. She's got her work cut out for her against Penn State's tall, tall trees, but much like the entire Wisconsin lineup, I doubt she minds being painted as an underdog.
Oh, all right, fine, a pick – I'll go with Penn State in four. They are the heavy favourites for every reason in the world, not least that they've already beaten Wisconsin twice this season (and in three on both occasions). The Badgers are playing some awfully inspired volleyball right now, but they'll need to come up with something truly special to be taking that national championship trophy back to Madison with them. And if they feel like proving me wrong again, it's gonna be one entertaining night of volleyball!
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