2008 PSU Team
This team is considered the best team ever. They went 38-0 and won the National Championship beat a very talented Stanford team 3-0 that featured the NPOY. That was PSU’s 37th sweep for the season. The only match they lost a set that year was the semi-final match in Omaha against Nebraska and their avid fans packing the arena. They dropped two sets to NE and were down 8-10 in the 5th set before rallying to win the 5th to move on.
I read a very interesting article featuring several members of that 2008 team written because it’s been 10 years. Our Associate Head Coach Alyssa was a sophomore L/DS on that team. It would be her 2nd National Championship. She would go on to win 4. I think she is the only DI athlete that won 4 State Championships in high school and 4 National Championships in college.
What most interviewed former players said was their head coach, Russ Rose, pushed them beyond what they though they were capable of achieving. I found two things interesting, both coming out of practice. First, Rose would make the starting hitters go against 4 blockers in practice, plus it said he added more defenders. It wasn’t clearly defined, but I had the impression the starters also practiced against more backrow players across the net. Think 6 against 8 - 4 blockers on the net and 4 defenders in the backrow. It’s a brilliant idea. You go against that every day in practice and when you get into a real match the court has to “look” wide open when you attack.
Most teams use two “practice guys” these days. This helps hitters go against players that are stronger and bigger, etc and more difficult to hit around. If two of the four blockers at the net are practice guys, your hitters are going to have to get better at making decisions in the air. Your setters are going to have to get better at making decisions at sending the ball to an open hitter.
The second thing Rose did was continually make the starting rotation fight back in practice after he “adjusted” the score so they were down 7 or 8 points. Remember, this was a team that swept 37 or thei 38 opponents that season. They were NEVER close to losing a match. But the players said in that semi-final match against NE, when they went down 8-10 in the 5th set - which goes to 15 to win, in the huddle they said, We can win this. We do it everyday in practice. And they did...winning that 5th set 15-11...only giving up 1 point after the timeout.
UD will have extremely talented teams the next couple years. To make the second weekend in the NCAA, it will take the coaching staff pushing players to raise their games beyond what they think they can do. We are very fortunate to have a former player like Alyssa now coaching at UD. She’s already proving she’s a standout recruiter. My guess is she is also helping shape practices to help take this program to the next level. She played for Rose four years and another 3-4 overseas professionally. And we are very fortunate we have TH because he allows his staff to “coach”. A lot of head coaches don’t.
Can’t wait for the Spring schedule to be released. Exciting times for UD Volleyball.
Last edited by BeckysTXA; 02-14-2019 at 03:59 PM..
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