UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State is back on top of the EIVA.
For the 35th time in program history, and 23rd time under head coach Mark Pavlik, the third-ranked Nittany Lions are celebrating a title.
The tournament’s top seed delivered a strong service game, solid defense and balanced offense to put away No. 2 seed and defending tournament champion Princeton 25-14, 25-18, 25-22 at Rec Hall on April 22, 2023.
The victory locks up an automatic bid to the NCAA National Collegiate Championship, which will be held April 30-May 6 at George Mason’s Eagle Bank Arena. The Nittany Lions (26-3, 10-0) just missed out on a top-two seed, which earns a bye into the semifinals. Penn State will face the winner of a play-in match between Ohio State, the MIVA champion, and Conference Carolinas champion King (Tenn.) in the first round on May 2. The Buckeyes handed the Lions their last loss on March 21. The winner of the first-round match advances to the semifinals to face No. 2 seed Hawaii on May 4.
Tournament Most Valuable Player Cal Fisher led the way with 12 kills, two aces, five digs and three blocks.
Penn State only delivered five aces, but the pace and pressure forced the Tigers into numerous errors or fairly predictable play. Princeton managed only 24 kills against 20 errors to hit .054.
The Nittany Lions also were focused on not letting this season end like 2022 – when they were undefeated in EIVA play and ranked third in the country, but lost to Princeton in the semifinals and completely missed the NCAA tournament.
All-Tournament Team
MVP: Cal Fisher – Penn State; Cole Bogner, Brett Wildman, Michal Kowal – Penn State; Ben Harrington – Princeton; Alessandro Negri – NJIT; Liam French – George Mason
Match notes

• Penn State will be making its 33rd appearance in the NCAA tournament, more than any other Division I men’s program.
• Penn State played without first-team All-EIVA middle hitter Toby Ezeonu, who suffered an ankle injury in Thursday’s semifinal against George Mason.
• The Nittany Lions dominated the latter half of the first set, closing on a 12-3 run which included seven consecutive points. As a team they had 10 kills, no errors and hit .667.
• Princeton’s block began to slow Penn State’s hitters a little, but the Lion service pressure continued with three aces, while the Tigers had as many kills as hitting errors (6).
• The third set was the tightest of the night, with nine ties and two lead changes. The last of those ties was a 21-21 before Sam Marsh put Penn State ahead for good with a kill. A Tiger error and Fisher kill followed, and after Fisher sailed a spike long, a quick set to Marsh in the middle was drilled into the floor to wrap up the match.

Match stats
Box Score
Penn State: 33 kills, .324 hitting, five aces, 22 digs, five blocks
Princeton: 24 kills, .054 hitting, four aces, 19 digs, 6.5 blocks
Wildman (PSU) eight kills, four digs
Kowal (PSU) six kills
Bogner (PSU) 25 assists, six digs
Ryan Merk (PSU) five digs
Brady Wedbush (PRIN) seven kills, four digs
Harrington (PRIN) five kills
Nyherowo Omene (PRIN) four kills, two aces, three blocks
Henry Wedbush (PRIN) 20 assists
Nico Posivak (PRIN) six digs
Post-match comments
Penn State media session video
Penn State coach Mark Pavlik
“All week long we just asked the guys to be who they are. We’re a pretty good team and I think we needed to do things harder, faster or better. I think we just needed to embrace the competition that we had.”
“It’s always great to be the champion. It’s good to be the king, and I think these guys wear the crown pretty well.”
“He (Harrington) is going to get his kills, but I think we made a long day for him.”
Cole Bogner
“Revenge is pretty sweet. It was always lying in the back of our heads, but we tried to never keep it something that we always thought about.”
Brett Wildman
“You want to enjoy your successes, but there’s still more in front of us.”
Cal Fisher
“That’s been our focus all year – focus on our serve and pass game, and our serving game was very good tonight and our pass game tonight was phenomenal. That makes it a lot easier for us to win matches.”
Princeton media session video
Princeton coach Sam Shweisky
“They played tremendous, they played fearless, they played maybe like they had a chip on their shoulder from I don’t know why or when.”
“They played great. The service pressure was great. Wildman and Fisher were relentless, and Bogner’s just an incredible competitor. It wasn’t our night. We didn’t have it.”
“I’m really proud of this team. We didn’t have the best start and found a way to start winning some games and coming together.”
“You can look at the offense but it’s really serving and passing. I think it’s hard. Henry was running all over the place. Those guys were crushing balls and these passers were doing the best they could. That’s one of the best serving teams in the country.”
Ryan Vena
“I think we maybe were trying to do too much in the beginning at least, and maybe throughout the game.”