TRAVERSE CITY -- Two-time national champions.
Alisha Glass likes the sound of that.
"It's one of those feelings that just gets better and better as it sinks in more and more," the junior said Sunday, less than 24 hours after Penn State successfully defended its NCAA volleyball crown with a 25-20, 26-24, 25-23 sweep over Stanford.
"To win an NCAA championship once was very, very hard," the former Leland standout added. "To do it again, well, it was an incredible journey from the beginning of the season when we made it our goal to the end. We're just really excited and happy that we finished it off."
Glass, a first team All-American, was named to the all-tournament team. She had 40 assists in Saturday night's final, earning the praise of coach Russ Rose.
"I think our defense was good, but certainly our bread and butter has been the offense and the net play and Alisha's ability to get a variety of hitters involved at the net," Rose told the media afterwards. "I think that has always been the strength of this team."
Penn State finished the season 38-0, extending its two-year win streak to an NCAA record 64 matches. The Nittany Lions only dropped two sets all season, those came in a grueling 3-2 semifinal win over Nebraska.
"A lot of people said we weren't challenged (prior to the Nebraska match)," Glass said. "For us to get that challenge -- and it was quite a challenge I might add -- and come out and get the win in a tough place to play (Omaha) was huge. That really motivated us for the final match."
And this time the Nittany Lions did it with a little less drama than in the semifinals.
"A lot of people talk about the pressure that was put on our team," Glass said. "I think the pressure we put on ourselves to get to the final match was enough. None of our goals were about not losing a set or not losing any matches. We wanted to win a national championship. That was our goal.
"Everybody (in the Final Four) had pressure. Nebraska had pressure. They had never lost before on that floor. Stanford had pressure because they had not won it (the previos two years) when they were in the finals. Texas had not been here before so they had something to prove. Everybody had pressure. We're just glad we stepped up and got it done."
Some are calling the 2008 Nittanmy Lions the greatest team of all time. Glass will let others decide that.
"A lot of people have different opinions," she said. "We were just trying to be the best indivuduals we could be and be the best team we could be. We have a lot of really talented players and towards the end we started to play really well as a team and we were just glad that we came together at the right time.
"It's an incredible feeling. It was a long run, an exhausting one. To be done with it all and come out on top is awesome."
So how do the Nittanmy Lions top this?
"There's always next year," Glass said. "I have one more year. There's definitely going to be some new faces, some new teammates that we'll have in the starting lineup. That will give us a bigger challenge to try and make that run again."
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