Seattle hosts
2013's final volleyball match
During the NCAA D1 Women's Volleyball Championships, Volleyblog Seattle is on assignment for ncaa.com. Please follow our coverage at http://www.ncaa.com/sports/volleyball-women/d1
It was a steamy August morning in Madison, Wisconsin. Coach
Kelly Sheffield stood before his new team.
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| Penn State's Deja McClendon (18) and her teammates will face Big Ten rival Wisconsin for the National Championships at Key Arena -Bettina Hansen, Seattle Times |
“We gave them a championship manual laying out everything
that we felt we needed to do. The goal we started talking about on day one is: let's
dream big.”
If Sheffield’s vision was reaching the National Championship
match in his very first season, then it proved to be a dream come true. Big Ten
rivals Wisconsin and Penn State face off Saturday night in Seattle with the
Division 1 title on the line. But Sheffield’s initial dream could have been a
nightmare.
Last November, legendary Badger coach Pete Waite resigned
after 14 seasons. Sheffield was hired at the end of the year after five
successful seasons at Dayton. His first dose of good news was that the nation’s
top recruit, setter Lauren Carlini, had decided to honor the commitment she had
made years earlier to attend Wisconsin. With that, Sheffield and his staff got
to work.
“You don't just wake up and you're competing for a national
championship,” Sheffield says. “You've got to lay the groundwork. You've got to
talk about it. You talk about it enough, you dream about it enough and all of a
sudden it doesn't seem so farfetched. And maybe you start believing.”
Sheffield had to sustain that belief through a
sometimes-rocky season in the always-tough Big Ten. During two separate
stretches, the Badgers lost 3 of 4 matches, including a crucial match against
Purdue.
“The Purdue match when we lost in five at their place was a
heartbreaker,” says outside hitter Ellen Chapman. “It was back and forth, and
every single game was defined by two or three points. That was just a hard
match to lose.”
“When it got right down to it,” Sheffield says of the Purdue
game, “we weren't playing great volleyball when the match was on the line.”
Two of the Badgers’ nine losses this season were 3-0 sweeps
at the hands of Penn State, a team that thoroughly dominated Pac-12 champion
Washington in Thursday’s second semifinal. If Wisconsin’s storyline is its new
coach, Penn State’s the exact opposite: coach Russ Rose has been at the school
for 34 seasons. His teams have won five national titles, including four in a
row from 2007-10. That success presents a different kind of challenge.
“If you don’t win the championship and win it big,” says
Rose, “you really let everybody down. Not many collegiate programs have to deal
with those sorts of expectations.”
Penn State has done little to dispel those expectations in
this year’s tournament. The team is playing with confidence and joy, led by setter
Micha Hancock and four-time AVCA All-American Deja McClendon. Hancock broke out
of a serving slump to lead two crucial 8-0 and 7-0 scoring runs against
Washington, while McClendon seemed to dig every ball hit her way.
“They beat us in every phase,” said Washington coach Jim
McLaughlin. “I gotta give Russ a lot of credit because they were very, very
consistent. If they play like that (against Wisconsin,) they're going to win
this thing.”
Illinois coach Kevin Hambly also thinks Penn State has the
advantage. His was the only team to play all four of this year’s semifinalists,
and says Rose excels at preparing his team for the limelight. “Russ has done it
more than anyone,” Hambly says. “He just knows how to get his team ready and
keep ‘em loose.”
Part of Rose’s preparation will have to include passing
against Wisconsin’s aggressive and varied serve, something Texas could not do
consistently in its 3-1 semifinal loss to the Badgers. “Wisconsin served
extremely tough and got us out of system,” says Texas coach Jerritt Elliott.
“We didn't find a way. Wisconsin did. And they played great.”
If Sheffield was dreaming big from the very start, his team
took a little longer to fully buy in. “We never expected that we were going to
get this far,” says Badger outside hitter Deme Morales. “But we all just
gathered together and we made a goal and we just fought back. Everyone is just
so proud of each other and we know we're one of the tightest teams out there.”
“These guys probably
believe they can conquer the world,” Sheffield says, “and they should. When you
battle through adversity together, that confidence becomes real and it becomes
powerful and strong, and they've got it right now.”
“This team deserves to be here.”
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