Team Tampa Bay's Take with Joey Johnston: Super 16 Have Sights Set on Tampa Bay!

By Joey Johnston

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Penn State Nittany Lions began their seasons at downtown Tampa’s Amalie Arena for a preseason tournament that was designed to properly christen one of the most anticipated campaigns in college volleyball history.

Fast forward to the present.

The Yellow Jackets and Nittany Lions are each two victories from returning to Tampa for the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship.

Sounds simple enough, right?

It is not.

The degree of difficulty will increase exponentially when the Yellow Jackets and Nittany Lions advance to this week’s NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 round as the Road to Tampa Bay rounds the final turn and heads for the straightaway for the flurry of Thursday’s regional semifinal matches (and gavel-to-gavel coverage of all of them on the ESPN networks).

Georgia Tech (24-6), coached by Michelle Collier, the former USF All-American and a member of the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame

Nebraska Regional, faces the unenviable task of facing the No. 1 overall seed Nebraska Cornhuskers (30-1) at Lincoln, Neb.

Meanwhile, Penn State (23-8), a tradition-laden program that has seemingly found itself after a rough start and a midseason slump, will take on the Big Ten Conference rival Wisconsin Badgers (28-3), the tournament’s No. 3 overall seed, at Madison, Wisc. In the regular-season meeting, Penn State beat Wisconsin in four sets.

Penn State-Wisconsin is one of three region semifinals that will match up conference foes — along with Kentucky-Arkansas (SEC) and Stanford-Arizona State (Pac-12). Kentucky, with an 18-match winning streak (longest of the remaining teams), swept Arkansas during the regular season. Stanford and Arizona State split their two matches.

Overall, Georgia Tech, Penn State and Arizona State (with a sweep of BYU) were the only teams that registered upsets against overall nationally-seeded teams that were hosting.

The Big Ten and Pac-12 each have four teams remaining, while the SEC and ACC each have three. The Big 12 and Big East each have one.

The Yellow Jackets, who were denied a home-court opportunity in the tournament’s first week, advanced by subduing the Florida Gators in Gainesville, rallying for a 22-25, 30-28, 25-21, 18-25, 16-14 decision. Georgia Tech erased fifth-set deficits of 10-7 and 13-11. The Yellow Jackets were paced by Tamara Otene, who had 21 kills, including eight in the final set.

“Super excited for our players and for our staff,’’ Collier said. “This is something that you pencil in at the beginning of the season and you hope that you get to. We played a great team (Florida) in a really tough environment and we were able to stay resilient an come up with the win.’’

Penn State survived in a spirited second-round duel against the Kansas Jayhawks on KU’s home court, winning 25-20, 22-25, 25-21, 13-25, 15-13 behind the play of Jess Mruzik (21 kills, 10 digs), Camryn Hannah (17 kills, .342 hitting percentage) and Taylor Trammell (10 kills, .471 hitting).

“Hats off to Kansas,’’ Penn State coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley said. “It was a battle. Both teams back and forth the entire match. We’re happy to get out with a win.’’

Here’s a quick look at this week’s Sweet 16 pairings (with regional seeds listed; all matches are Thursday):

Nebraska Regional

1-Nebraska (30-1) vs. 5-Georgia Tech (24-6), 2 p.m. (ESPN2)

2-Kentucky (21-7) vs. 3-Arkansas (27-5), 4:30 p.m. (ESPN2)

Pittsburgh Regional

1-Pittsburgh (27-4) vs. 4-Washington State (26-7), 2:30 p.m. (ESPNU)

2-Louisville (26-4) vs. 3-Creighton (29-4), Noon (ESPN2)

Wisconsin Regional

1-Wisconsin (28-3) vs. 5-Penn State (23-8), 7 p.m. (ESPN2)

2-Oregon (28-5) vs. 3-Purdue (23-8), 9:30 p.m. (ESPNU)

Stanford Regional

1-Stanford (28-3) vs. 5-Arizona State (28-6), 11:30 p.m. (ESPNU)

2-Texas (24-4) vs. 3-Tennessee (26-4), 9 p.m. (ESPN2)