Minnesota, last year’s Big Ten volleyball champions, will do battle with two conference foes this weekend and have a solid chance to repeat.
The 19th-ranked Gophers (21-9, 14-4 Big Ten), who trail No. 11 Penn State (26-4, 15-3) by one match, will host the Lions in Minnesota’s second to last conference match of the season Friday night before welcoming Big Ten kills leader Stacey Gordon and Ohio State (10-16, 4-14) on Saturday.
“It would be inappropriate to deny that if we win two matches we will at least tie for the championship,” Minnesota coach Mike Hebert said.
The Gophers defeated Penn State in straight sets earlier this season. Minnesota dropped the Lions with a 30-26, 30-18, 30-21 victory Oct. 18 in State College, Pa.
“I expect them to be at their best and for us to be at our best,” Minnesota senior captain Cassie Busse said. “We all know what’s at stake.”
With Minnesota wins both Friday and Saturday, the Gophers would likely tie the Lions for the Big Ten championship. Minnesota would own the tiebreaker for the automatic NCAA bid over Penn State in this scenario, having won both matches against the team this season.
There is also an outside chance the Gophers, Penn State and Illinois would all tie for the title, in which Minnesota would again have the automatic NCAA bid nod, having won the most games against these teams in head-to-head competition.
In case of any sort of tie, the official Big Ten championship would be a co- or tri-title, with Minnesota receiving the automatic bid.
A Gophers loss would eliminate any possibility of repeating.
“Hopefully we’ll just play our game and come out with a victory,” junior Erin Martin said. “We can’t control what they do on their side of the net.”
Penn State is well aware of what it is going up against, too.
“We’re playing a team I picked to win the conference at the beginning of the year,” Penn State coach Russ Rose said. “The players would like to demonstrate that they are better than they played when they lost (to Minnesota) that weekend.”
When the visiting Gophers swept his team earlier in the year, Rose’s Lions were severely out-blocked by the Gophers.
Minnesota had 16 team blocks; Penn State had just five.
“I don’t know if it’s going to be as much blocking as it is digging this time,” middle blocker Meredith Nelson said, “because they know we’ll be putting up a solid wall this time.”
Nelson led the Gophers with five and a half blocks (one solo, nine assist blocks) in the win over Penn State.
Nelson’s teammate, Lindsey Taatjes, led Minnesota with 44 assists in that match.
Taatjes – a team captain – led the Gophers with 86 assists in two victories last weekend and was named Big Ten player of the week.
In 15 kill attempts, she accomplished seven kills without committing an error.
