Anna DeBeer lay face down near the net for a long time, and when she finally stood, it was in stages. First she rose to her knees, and held that pose for a while, not yet ready to rest the ankle she had just twisted in an NCAA volleyball semifinal.
When the Louisville star finally left the floor at the KFC Yum Center Thursday night, it was with assistance and without putting any weight on her right foot.
“I think at first, when she went down, I was like, ‘OK, she’s going to be fine,” Payton Petersen recalled. “She’s going to get back up. I was like, ‘She’s going to be okay.’ Then when it hit me like she’s not going to come back, I wanted to do this for her. She’s meant so much to me, and for that to be (potentially) her last game, I didn’t want that to happen.”
What Petersen did Thursday night was to step in as an emergency substitute for the University of Louisville’s leading scorer and perform in a way that will give her grandchildren goosebumps. The little-used freshman rose to the occasion and then some, delivering back-to-back service aces, four “digs” and two kills, including the match-clincher in U of L’s 21-25, 25-23, 29-27, 25-17 upset of top-ranked Pittsburgh.
When DeBeer went down, Louisville had won two of the first three sets and led the fourth, 2-0. She had singlehandedly thwarted three of Pitt’s four match points in the third set, with her 12th, 13th and 14th kills of the match. That U of L could cling to its slight advantage in the absence of its biggest hitter and against a Pitt team that had lost only once in 34 matches was the stuff of storybooks.
As DeBeer exclaimed in a 12:03 a.m. tweet: “PAYTON. FREAKIN. PETERSEN.”
Just 12 days earlier, Petersen had served mostly as a spectator when the Cardinals survived a five-set tournament match against a Northern Iowa team coached by her mother, Bobbi. The two aces she recorded Thursday night matched her season total entering the match.
“We didn’t foresee a lot of playing time for her as a freshman,” U of L coach Dani Busboom Kelly said. “But we knew we needed to use this year to get her ready, and she’s going to be a staple in this program. She’s the type of player we need and develop really well here. She has a high volleyball IQ, somebody who has a lot of confidence in themselves and exudes leadership. I saw all that in the recruiting process and sold her to join us.”
When it came time for Petersen’s battlefield promotion Thursday night, Busboom Kelly assured her she was ready for her opportunity on center stage.
“Dani had told her, ‘Payton, you have ice in your veins,’ and in my head, I’m like, ‘Hell yeah, she does,’ ” U of L senior Charitie Luper said. “She just really stayed composed. She didn’t act her age. She acted like she was a senior today, just staying calm and knowing exactly what to do, and I’m just so proud of her.”
Coaches’ kids can be like that. They grow up so close to the game that it holds little mystery for them. Petersen and her twin sister, Jadyn, were both all-state in Iowa as sophomores. Two older sisters, Baylee and Sydney (also twins) had played college volleyball previously.
“I will say it’s a cool experience to play against your mom and your sister,” Payton Petersen said. “But to be honest, I never want to do it again in the tournament. I don’t know, it just felt weird.
“Obviously I wanted us to win, but at the same time, you like know someone on the other side, and you know it’s a season-ending game. So it was just a little weird, but I think obviously them pressuring us added a little more weird stuff to it. Obviously it helped us, and I joked with my mom, I was like, ‘Yeah, when we won the Purdue game. . .you guys helped us win that game.’ So I think it’s just a weird perspective, but I’m thankful for it.”
Whether the additional seasoning Petersen gained Thursday will have any bearing on Sunday’s NCAA championship match against Penn State is unclear. Though DeBeer would return to the floor nearly 10 minutes after being helped off, and under her own power, she would not return to the match. There was, it turned out, no need. Though Pitt’s Olivia Babcock, the presumed Player of the Year, would finish with 33 kills – more than twice the total of any individual U of L player – the Cardinals countered with an extraordinary .516 hitting percentage in the final set.
“It just felt like everybody was so dialed in, we could have put anybody in and had the same outcome,” Busboom Kelly said.
Busboom Kelly called on Payton Petersen in her moment of need. She answered in the affirmative.
This article appears in Dec 18, 2024 – Jan 16, 2025.