When the dust settled after Thursday’s captivating Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship semifinals, one storyline immediately emerged: the fact that that a female head coach would hoist the trophy come Sunday. That hasn’t happened in the previous 42 Division I Championships, but that will change today at the KFC Yum! Center in downtown Louisville.
Whether it will be Dani Busboom Kelly of Louisville or Katie Schumacher-Cawley of Penn State doin the hoisting remains to be seen. But, either way, it will be another historic moment for the sport in a season that has already included plenty of historic moments—record-setting attendance, unprecedented TV coverage, and now an epic championship match that could have easily included neither the Cardinals or the Nittany Lions.
Thursday’s matches, played in front of a raucous, semifinals-record crowd of 21,726, provided high-drama and featured some coaching genius by Busboom Kelly and Schumacher-Cawley.
In the first semifinal, the Cardinals faced Pittsburgh, the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed. The Panthers took the first set 25-21 and led 10-4 in the second before Busboom Kelly’s team rallied to win 25-23. Pittsburgh, led by 2024 AVCA Coach of the Year Dan Fisher, held a 21-17 advantage in set three, but Busboom Kelly’s Cards tied the match at 23 and saved four set points to win 29-27. Louisville maintained momentum, closing out the match 25-17 in the fourth set.
Despite losing Anna DeBeer to an ankle injury early in the fourth set, Busboom Kelly’s strategic move to insert freshman Payton Peterson paid off. Peterson contributed two kills, four digs, and two service aces, helping Louisville secure their spot in the final.
Busboom Kelly also led the Cardinals to a victory over Stanford in the regional finals, defeating a program that has won the most Division I titles.
In Thursday’s second match, Penn State fell behind 2-0 to a loaded Nebraska team that featured four 2024 All-Americans and is led by AVCA Hall of Fame Coach John Cook. The Huskers took the first two sets 25-23 and 25-18. Schumacher-Cawley then rallied her team, leading them to a 25-23 win to extend the match. In set four, Nebraska was up 22-16, but after a Schumacher-Cawley timeout, Penn State fought back to win 28-26, forcing a fifth set.
In the decisive fifth, Penn State maintained their lead, ultimately winning 15-13 on Camryn Hannah’s first-ball kill that completed an improbable reverse sweep.
Schumacher-Cawley’s team also won a five-set thriller in the regional final against a Kirsten Bernthal-Booth-led Creighton team that had knocked off the two-time defending champion Texas Longhorns in the regional semifinals.
While it is hard to forecast exactly what will happen today in front of another packed house at the Yum! Center—and in front of millions of viewers tuning in on ABC—Busboom Kelly and Schumacher-Cawley will be ready to meet the moment.
The other certainty is that, once the final point hits the court, one of these two great coaches will become the first woman to lead her team to the NCAA Division I title … and that will be a moment to celebrate.
