UCLA @ #15 Penn State 9-28-2025 WVB
Dear Readers~
Welcome to the latest game covering the 2025 NCAA Division 1 Indoor Women's Volleyball season. Today's game took place at Rec Hall in State College, Pennsylvania as #15 Penn State hosted an unranked UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). Penn State is coming off of 3 straight wins against schools like USC, Princeton, and Central Michigan while UCLA is coming off of a loss to Stanford and a win to Ohio State. Going into the game, UCLA is sitting at 7-4 while Penn State is sitting at 7-4 as well. This is the only time this season that the two will play each other, so let's get into this game to see who gets to be 8-4 and who becomes 7-5.
For those who have seen my coverage of the NCAA beach games back in the spring, I explained the difference between the beach and indoor games. For those who don't know, the way indoor works is you have to win 3 sets, whether it be all 3, or 3 of the 4/5 sets that are played. As for the scoring, for the beach, it's played first to 21 while indoor is played first to 25 and both require a lead of two points or more for the set to conclude. If a fifth set is needed, the teams play first to 15 instead of 25 but the lead of two points or more is still enforced. Unlike the beach game, you can switch players in and out (the NCAA only gives you 15 per set so you have to use them wisely with 6 players on the court), like in basketball for example, but with beach you can't switch them out and you only get one timeout for each set per team as to where NCAA indoor gets two timeouts per set for each team since they generally play longer sets. Enough about the beach game, let's get into this indoor game from Pennsylvania.
The first set ended very close at 25-22, in favor of Penn State, giving them the 1-0 lead. The second set ended 25-19, the largest gap of any set's score, in favor of UCLA. The third set ended the closest at 25-23 and in favor of UCLA. This gets UCLA just one set away from a win against Penn State. The fourth set ended 25-23 as well and in favor of UCLA also. This gives UCLA the 3-1 victory against Penn State.
Let's see who the top players of each team were. We'll look at kills, aces, blocks, assists, and digs. Starting with kills, the leader was Penn State's Kennedy Martin, with 34, while Cheridyn Leverette led UCLA with 20. The leader in aces goes to Kat Lutz, of UCLA, with 2 while UCLA's Marianna Singletary and Cheridyn Leverette, along with Penn State's Gillian Grimes, Addie Lyon, and Ava Falduto all had one ace each. The leader in blocks goes to Marianna Singletary, of UCLA, with 7, while Maggie Mendelson led Penn State with 5. The leader in assists goes to Kate Duffey, of UCLA, and Addie Lyon, of Penn State, each with 47. The leader in digs goes to Lola Schumacher, of UCLA, with 24, while Gillian Grimes led Penn State with 18.
With this game concluded, let's see who each team would play next. The next game for UCLA is against Wisconsin in Madison at 7pm Central time on Friday, October 17th while Penn State's next game is against Washington in Seattle at 9pm Central time, also on Friday the 17th.
This concludes today's game of UCLA taking on Penn State for the 2025 NCAA Women's Indoor Volleyball season. With this being the only time these two play each other this season, do you think they'll play each other in the National championships, or will we have to wait for the 2026 season to see a rematch? Stay tuned for the next blog as I cover the game between Utah and Arizona State to see if Arizona State can keep their perfect at home record or if Utah will give them their first loss in Tempe at the Desert Financial Arena. If there's a certain team or matchup, you'd like me to cover, let me know, and until next time, Miller out
~J. Miller
Comments
Post a Comment