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Penn State outlasts Creighton to win regional final (1:08)
Penn State defeats Creighton in five sets to reach the NCAA women's volleyball semifinal. (1:08)
Michael Voepel, ESPN.comDec 16, 2024, 12:55 AM ET
- Michael Voepel is a senior writer who covers the WNBA, women's college basketball and other college sports. Voepel began covering women's basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.
The NCAA women's volleyball final four will feature all four No. 1 seeds, as Nebraska and Penn State won their regional finals Sunday, joining Pitt and Louisville, who advanced Saturday.
The national semifinals are Thursday in Louisville, with the hometown Cardinals facing the Panthers at 6:30 p.m. ET, followed by the Huskers vs. the Nittany Lions. Both matches are on ESPN. The national championship match will be Sunday, Dec. 22 at 3 p.m. ET on ABC.
Both semifinals match up conference foes. ACC rivals Louisville and Pitt are each seeking their first national championship in volleyball. It's very different on the other side of the bracket: Big Ten rivals Penn State (7) and Nebraska (5) have 12 NCAA titles and nine runner-up finishes between them.
During the regular season, No. 1 overall seed Pitt beat Louisville in its two matchups, and Penn State beat Nebraska in their meeting.
The Huskers, now in their 18th NCAA final four, advanced easily Sunday, sweeping Wisconsin 26-24, 25-17, 25-21. Taylor Landfair, a senior playing her first season at Nebraska after transferring from Minnesota, led the Huskers with 11 kills. Nebraska also swept the Badgers in both Big Ten regular-season meetings this year.
Penn State is making its 14th NCAA final four but had a tougher go of it Sunday. The Nittany Lions were pushed to five sets by No. 2 seed Creighton, which was trying to make its first final four and set up an all-Nebraska school semifinal. But the Nittany Lions, with the advantage of playing the regional on its home court like the other No. 1 seeds, took the fifth set 15-7. Jess Mruzick led Penn State with 20 kills.
No woman head coach has ever won the NCAA Division I volleyball championship, which was first contested in 1981. But there is a chance it could happen this year, as two women -- Louisville's Dani Busboom Kelly and Penn State's Katie Schumacher-Cawley -- are in the final four.
The only coach in the final four who has previously won a title is Nebraska's John Cook, who has four of the Huskers' titles. All of Penn State's championships came under Russ Rose, who retired after the 2021 season.
