Penn State-Wisconsin Marathon (2011)

For drama in a regular-season match, it would be hard to top today's Penn State-Wisconsin battle in Madison. In the end, it was the unranked Badgers pulling a five-game upset over the No. 6 Nittany Lions, 26-24, 25-19, 32-34, 14-25, 15-12.

The set score that probably jumps out at you is that for Game 3, won by Penn State 34-32 in preventing a Wisconsin sweep. As gleaned from this statistics sheet (which includes the box score and play-by-play) and shown in the following table, the Badgers had five game (and thus match) points in the third set, and the Lions also had five game points.

Held Game Point	Score	Held Game Point
Wisconsin	24-23
	25-24	Penn State
	26-25	Penn State
	27-26	Penn State
Wisconsin	28-27
Wisconsin	29-28
Wisconsin	30-29
Wisconsin	31-30
	32-31	Penn State
	33-32	Penn State*

HTML Tables

*Won game 34-32.

Penn State outhit Wisconsin for the match, .212-.173. One game about which the Nittany Lions are probably kicking themselves is the opener. Despite outhitting Wisconsin .250-.182, Penn State dropped Game 1 to the Badgers, 26-24, thanks in part to five Lion service errors.

For the match, total team blocks were essentially even, 15 for PSU to 14 for Wisconsin.

Side-out rates (i.e., winning points on the opponent's serve) are instructive. In any particular game (set), whichever team records the higher side-out percentage will win. As seen in the graph below, Wisconsin was the steadier team at siding out, registering in the .60s in four of the five games, whereas Penn State jumped around a bit more.

In the closing stages of the match, Wisconsin built a 14-10 lead in Game 5 (which is played only to 15). Fighting till the end, as always, Penn State held off two more match points, cutting the Badgers' lead to 14-12. At that point, Wisconsin finally got the game-winning kill from Bailey Reshel.