UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Niagara volleyball team saw its record season come to an end in a straight-set (25-12, 25-19, 25-15) defeat against the fourth-seeded Penn State Nittany Lions in the 2010 NCAA Tournament First Round on Friday night at Rec Hall. 

“We were excited to be back this year representing Niagara,” head coach Susan Clements said. “We were excited to play Penn State, the three-time defending champions. We went in wanting to play hard, good defense and serve tough and I think we did that.”

Niagara (25-9) had a valiant effort against the three-time defending national champion Penn State Nittany Lions (27-5) on their home court. The win extends the Nittany Lions’ home match win streak to 91, which sets a new NCAA record; Penn State will play Virginia Tech in the second round on Saturday at 7 p.m.

The Purple Eagles were making their second-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament, with last season’s appearance being their first. Niagara scored the first point against Michigan last season, but fell in a 2-0 hole against the Nittany Lions. NU would tie the score at 2-2 before PSU went on an 8-3 run to force a Niagara timeout.

PSU’s height advantage made things difficult throughout the match, especially in the first set; they had five team blocks and had a hitting percentage of .480 (13 kills and one error), en route to a 25-12 first set win.

“Their height was really tough for us,” junior Hannah Hedrick said.. We don’t play anyone with that kind of height, so we had to take a different mentality playing against them.”

Niagara fell in a groove to start the second set. Sophomore Kari Homomichl scored three straight points and the Purple Eagles found themselves up 6-4. A kill by Michelle James put Niagara up 9-7 and silenced the crowd of 1848.

With the scored tied at 10-10, PSU went on an 8-3 run. The Purple Eagles would counter with strong passing and digging. Niagara would cut the lead to 19-18, but the Nittany Lions finished the set scoring six of the last seven points. Niagara had some crucial errors which halted its momentum. The Purple Eagles had five service aces in the entire match with all of them occurring in the second set. The 19 points in the second set were the most scored by NU in a NCAA Tournament set, topping 15 points in the third set versus Michigan.

“We were digging the ball and serving tough,” Clements said about the second set. “We kept them from setting their middles which we knew we had to do. We worked hard all week at serving as aggressively as we could. I think missing those serves that hit the net really hurt us.”

Niagara kept it close to start the third set. Junior Sam Morgan put Niagara up 3-2 on a service ace, PSU responded with an 8-1 run to take a 10-4 lead. By then, it was too much Nittany Lions. All-Big Ten selection Arielle Wilson had five of her nine kills in the set to be tie with fellow All-Big Ten selection Blair Brown for the match-high of nine kills. Wilson ended the match with back-to-back kills.

The Purple Eagles finished the match hitting in the negative (-.010) for the first time this season, despite having attacking percentages of .059 and .054 in the second and third sets.

Homomichl and Hedrick each had six kills to lead Niagara. Middle blockers Kathy Bibler and Amanda Wilken had five and three kills, respectively. Freshman Ellen Senf and Morgan each had two kills, while James had one kill and 20 assists. Morgan kept her NCAA-best double-digits dig streak active with 14 digs to lead Niagara. The streak is now at 96 matches.

One streak that does come to an end is its 19-match win streak. The Purple Eagles’ program-best win streak was the sixth-longest in the nation.

Niagara finishes the season with a program-best 25-9 record.