As junior opposite hitter Noemie Glover walked off the court following Sunday's 3-1 victory over No. 2 Penn State, the entire volleyball world was put on notice. With the win on Sunday, ASU collected one of its best wins in program history.
"This is pretty special," said head coach JJ Van Niel in an interview on Fox. "I am really proud of the team; they just scrapped like crazy."
This scrappy ASU win was not necessarily a "David vs. Goliath" underdog story. Last season, the Sun Devils won a century-best 30 matches and took home their first Big 12 title.
The Sun Devils entered the match on Sunday ranked No. 13 after sweeping Northern Iowa in their first contest of the season.
After pulling out the broom against UNI, the Sun Devils would face the defending national champions: the Penn State Nittany Lions. Coming off a season where they were on top of the volleyball mountain, the Nittany Lions wanted to make an early statement in 2025.
However, the Sun Devils came to play. Following a close loss in set one, ASU regrouped and took the next three sets, including the fourth and final one, which ended in a 31-29 score and saw multiple match points for both teams.
"We are grittier than maybe I appreciated," Van Niel said on Fox. "I was really proud of them ... and we had some players come up huge."
One of the players Van Niel was referencing was the aforementioned Glover. A transfer from the University of Oregon, Glover helped lead the Ducks to the regional semifinals in the NCAA Tournament last year. Not only did Glover's team succeed, but she also recorded a colossal total of 263 kills in 2024.
Glover's experience in big contests showed up on Sunday, when she set career highs of 22 kills and 10 blocks.
Glover was such an issue for Penn State that their head coach, Katie Schumacher-Cawley, tried to make adjustments to the team during the match.
"We've got to get in the way and do something different and be aggressive," Schumacher-Cawley said in an interview on Fox. "We have to make a change."
Unfortunately for the defending champions, the changes didn't affect the final result. ASU closed out the Nittany Lions thanks in large part to Glover.
After the program-defining win, the Sun Devils were back on the court the following day to take on the No. 9 Pittsburgh Panthers.
Pitt was coming off a nice win of its own, defeating No. 25 TCU. Both the Sun Devils and Panthers were riding a wave of momentum.
That wave quickly petered out for ASU. The Sun Devils came out flat and were swept in three straight sets.
Not only that, but each set was worse than the previous, with scores of 25-21, 25-18 and 25-16.
"(The Sun Devils) are scrappy," Pitt head coach Dan Fisher said in an interview with Fox Sports 1. "That said, we went on a few nice service runs, and I thought we blocked well."
Now it is up to Van Niel to get his team back on track as they prepare for a couple of matches back home in the desert.
The Sun Devils will take on Florida Gulf Coast on Sept. 5 before they face Loyola Marymount on Sept. 7.
If the team wants to get back in the win column, they will have to improve on service errors. They committed 23 against Penn State, yet still managed to pull out the victory. Even though they only committed nine service errors in the loss to Pitt, both numbers hurt the Sun Devils at the State Farm Volleyball Showcase.
"Our best defense is the tough serve," Van Niel said on Fox. "That's an area we've got to clean up a little bit."
Edited by Jack McCarthy, Henry Smardo and Pippa Fung.
Reach the reporter at mseal6@asu.edu and follow @masonseal23 on X.
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Mason Seal is a reporter in the sports department. He provides intel and paints stories about many different sports for The State Press. He is in his third semester at The State Press.
