Penn State Nittany Lions2023 Record: 23-9
Conference Record: 15-5 (T-3rd)
NCAA Tournament Placement: Regional Semifinals (L, 1-3 at Wisconsin)
Final AVCA Ranking: 12
Head Coach: Katie Schumacher-Cawley (3rd year at Penn State)
Record at Penn State: 49-17
| Returning Starters | Departures
* - 2023 Starter
() - Transfer Destination | New Additions
() - Transfer Origin |
Gillian Grimes - JR - 5'6 DS/L
Camryn Hannah - SR+ - 6'2 OH/RS
Jess Mruzik - SR+ - 6'1 OH
Anjelina Starck - SR - 6'2 OH/DS
Taylor Trammell - SR+ - 6'2 MB | Maddy Bilinovic* - SR+ - 5'7 DS/L (Creighton)
Allie Holland* - SR+ - 6'3 MB (College of Charleston)
Cassie Kuerschen - SR - 5'9 DS/L [No longer on roster]
Lina Perugini - 5'7 DS/L
Mac Podraza* - 6'2 S
Macy Van Den Elzen - 6'3 RS
Ally Van Eekeren - 6'0 S
Zoe Weatherington* - 6'2 RS | Ava Falduto - FR - 5'7 DS/L
Jordan Hopp - SR+ - 6'2 MB (Iowa State)
Caroline Jurevicius - R-FR - 6'2 OH/RS (Nebraska)
Maggie Mendelson - JR - 6'5 MB (Nebraska)
Izzy Starck - FR - 6'1 S |
2022 was Katie Schumacher-Cawley's first year as Penn State head coach. The PSU alum and former assistant took over following the retirement of 43-year head coach Russ Rose after the 2021 season. Schumacher-Cawley's debut campaign ended with a 26-8 record, and the Nittany Lions fell in five sets at Wisconsin in the regional semifinals.
Year 2 brought immediate adversity as Penn State opened 2023 with back-to-back losses to Florida and Georgia Tech. The Nittany Lions settled back in at Rec Hall and took care of Western Kentucky, Colgate, and James Madison to get back on the plus side.
After taking down an overmatched Temple team, Penn State suffered its third loss of the season in a dismal performance at Louisville. Wins over UMBC and Seton Hall put the Nittany Lions at 6-3 heading into conference play.
Penn State faced a lighter start to Big Ten play and swept Rutgers, Northwestern, and Illinois. A ranked win followed as the Nittany Lions pushed past Minnesota in the Pav.
The up-and-down woes of non-conference play seemed to be behind Penn State as the Nittany Lions kept racking up Big Ten wins. They weren't always pretty wins, as Penn State needed five sets to dispatch Indiana and Ohio State in back-to-back matches.
Penn State's Big Ten record swelled to 7-0 before the team suffered its first conference loss of the season. The Nittany Lions were outpaced at Nebraska in straight sets and dropped to 7-1--still legitimately in the conference title hunt.
However, this loss kicked off Penn State's mid-season struggles in which the Nittany Lions lost four out of five matches. Purdue invaded Rec Hall and earned a four-set win. After scraping past Michigan, Penn State lost three consecutive matches in five-set decisions.
The first was Penn State's worst loss of the season: an upset at Michigan State. The Nittany Lions then squandered a 2-0 home lead to undefeated Nebraska. An imperfect trifecta was capped with another loss to Purdue.
Penn State had an easier late-season slate--except for its home meeting with Wisconsin. Fortunately, the Nittany Lions defeated a shorthanded Badger team to pick up the best win of the 2023 campaign. Rec Hall delivered again.
This was not enough to put Rec Hall in the NCAA Tournament landscape. Penn State was slated as a five-seed and traveled to Lawrence, Kansas for the first two rounds. The Nittany Lions limped past Yale in the opener but had enough late heroics to down the home-standing Jayhawks.
For the second year in a row, Penn State trekked to Madison to meet Wisconsin in the regional semifinals. Both trips ended with Penn State losses.
2023 Lineup:Transfers were a prevailing theme in Penn State's 2023 lineup.
A new setter ran the show as Big Ten Setter of the Year Mac Podraza was brought in from Ohio State for her last year of eligibility. Podraza is a polarizing figure in Big Ten lore, so you can draw your own conclusions about the quality of setting she brought to Happy Vally. Regardless, Podraza was the second fifth-year transfer setter to lead Penn State's offense in as many years under Schumacher-Cawley.
Penn State's leading scorer in 2023 was an intra-conference transfer. Jess Mruzik left Michigan after three years with her home university. She immediately became Penn State's leading outside hitter and recorded a whopping 519 kills in 2023. Mruzik finished fourth in that metric among Big Ten players while flip-flopping between L1 and L2. She started the year as the L1, had an extended stint at L2, and finished back at L1.
Clemson transfer Camryn Hannah had a similarly eventful journey on Penn State's lineup card. The senior pin hitter had been a high-volume scorer for the Tigers and registered nearly 400 kills in her final year with the program. Hannah was initially Penn State's top contributor at opposite, but a change was coming. As November approached, Hannah moved from the right to the left and was the new L2 for the Nittany Lions. She averaged a 0.257 hitting clip with nearly three kills per set.
The Nittany Lions had struggled to find consistency at L1 before Hannah's move. This had initially been a battle between returning pin hitters Anjelina Starck and Alexa Markley. Markley got most of the frontcourt reps while Starck came in as a DS. When Markley was phased out of the lineup, Starck was still used as the DS for the L2.
The late-season void at opposite was filled by fifth-year senior Zoe Weatherington. The former Utah attacker had a career-best 306 kills in her first year at Penn State in 2022. However, Weatherington saw a diminished role last season and was largely absent between mid-September and mid-October. Once Hannah shifted places, the right pin was back in Weatherington's hands. She registered about two kills per set and hit shy of 0.200.
Penn State's libero jersey belonged to sophomore Gillian Grimes. Grimes saw a steady DS role as a freshman and used that experience to take the top spot away from junior Maddy Bilinovic. Penn State also used a backcourt substitution for its opposite. Junior defender Cassie Kuerschen got some early-season time in that role before Bilinovic took that role to close out the season.
Middle blockers were consistent. Returning senior Allie Holland was the primary M1 and tallied 185 kills on a 0.286 average. She had been a steady starter since 2021. Former Purdue middle blocker Taylor Trammell was the M2 and returned from a season-ending ankle injury midway through 2022. She received an uptick in attacking volume and converted on 190 swings.
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2024 Projected Lineup:Penn State is bringing in several new faces to complement what should be an outside-heavy team.
This means Mruzik and Hannah are back and should remain at their respective positions. Mruzik's workload might increase after last season's ridiculous numbers, and a lot will be expected from Hannah now that her position is clearly defined. Don't expect her to move back to opposite.
That opposite spot is where the latest transfer discussion can begin. The presumptive starter on the right is redshirt freshman Caroline Jurevicius, a former top-ranked recruit who did not play in her first and only year at Nebraska. We don't have anything to go off of at the collegiate level, but Penn State will surely lean on its belated legacy recruit. Markley is back to offer depth during her dual-pin journey.
The other notable transfers are at middle blocker. Junior Maggie Mendelson follows Jurevicius from Nebraska to Penn State and joins a position group that loses Holland to College of Charleston. Mendelson made occasional appearances in her two years with the Cornhuskers and probably fits the M2 mold. Graduate transfer Jordan Hopp, a Nebraska native, might see some court action after transferring from Iowa State.
Trammell is the returning veteran in the middle, but roster movement at the position could shift her to M1. She has been at M2 for most of her career (including her Purdue stint), so don't lock this shift in yet.
Grimes sticks around at libero while both Bilinovic and Kuerschen depart. In the likely event a backcourt sub is used, Penn State could look to freshman Ava Falduto to become an immediate contributor. Falduto was a vital piece of the 2024 signing class and enters a backcourt unit with less depth than last year. If Penn State needs to go further into the bench, we're looking at new starters like Kate Lally or Jocelyn Nathan. Don't forget about Starck's DS role, either.
This group will need to be coalesced by true freshman setter Izzy Starck. There is no one else. Starck, who moved from Nevada to Colorado to Florida during her prep career, was widely considered one of the best overall recruits in the 2024 class. She brings USAV experience and was a game-changing opposite on the prep stage. Starck needs to embrace the spotlight with only serving specialist Quinn Menger as her backup. Setter play could be a major push-pull variable in Penn State's 2024 success.
2024 Schedule:Penn State starts the 2024 season in Knoxville for a meeting with Tennessee. It's then a quick two-day turnaround to face Temple in Philly.
Louisville is back on the schedule, but it's in Rec Hall this time. Anything is better than 2023's unsightly match.
The Nittany Lions will travel close to Louisville's home base to face Kentucky and Ball State. SEC road tests abound.
The Penn State Invitational features Duke, Princeton, and St. John's. Those should all be wins, but we'll see how these teams end up reflecting on RPI.
A mid-week marquee matchup at Pitt is next. It's not a double dip like we've seen in previous years, but it's still a contest with big implications. Penn State and Pittsburgh have already sparred in this year's spring season.
James Madison and Yale close it out. They're on the Penn State slate a lot.
Ivy League:
2024 Outlook:Transfers and first-year setters always make for fun prognostications. Penn State is getting good at this.
As long as Mruzik and Hannah are still churning out kills comparable to 2023's rates, the Nittany Lions can hang with almost anyone in the conference. It's hard to expect Mruzik to give any more than she already has, but Hannah's assumed positional stability could bridge the gap between her and Mruzik. That would give the Nittany Lions quite a left-side combo.
Group efforts are still required to remain a consistent force in the upper echelon. That's where the unknowns trickle in and could sway Penn State's ceiling one way or another. Factors include Jurevicius's acclimation at opposite, Mendelson's impact on the middle hierarchy, and, greatest of all, Starck's quick development as the starting setter.
Penn State was picked to finish third in this year's Big Ten race, and that will widely be viewed as the team's reachable peak. Any movement up or down will depend on how well the new pieces can settle in and accompany the big hammers on the outside.
