Penn State’s record volleyball match winning streak ends at 109 with loss to Stanford

more images

more images

Penn State’s record winning streak ends at 109

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — It had been nearly three years and 109 matches since the Penn State women’s volleyball team had lost a match.

Now the second-longest winning streak in Division I team sports is over after the Nittany Lions fell to Stanford 28-26, 25-12, 25-18 on Saturday night in a tournament at Florida.

“I thought Stanford played terrific,” Penn State coach Russ Rose said. “We’ve played a lot of good matches with this team. Through the streak, we’ve had a lot of ups, downs, and all-arounds, but tonight, they played a lot better than we did.”

During its historic run, Penn State won three straight national championships and lost just 19 sets. The Nittany Lions (7-1) won a record-breaking 111 straight sets from the final set of the 2007 national championship match against Stanford to the third set of the 2008 national semifinal against Nebraska.

Only the Miami men’s tennis program had a longer streak, winning 137 straight matches from 1957-1964.

The Cardinal (7-0) also were the last previous team to beat Penn State, winning a five-set match in the Yale Classic on Sept. 15, 2007.

“I think it’s really exciting for my team,” Stanford coach John Dunning said. “We had lost some really big matches in that streak to Penn State, so to have a chance to win a match against them was really great. They’re a great team and have been for a long time.”

Alix Klineman had a match-high 16 kills and 10 digs to lead Stanford.

“They had three veteran players that played great and they just outplayed us,” Rose said. “I thought we had a chance in the first game to win, but they kind of slipped away from us. We played real poorly in the second game and that’s how it went.”