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Aishwarya Kumar, ESPN.comDec 22, 2024, 09:47 PM ET
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Anna DeBeer gingerly removes her right shoe as tears stream down her face. Louisville’s fifth-year outside hitter fixes her gaze to the floor as she sits in front of her locker at the KFC Yum! Center. She places the shoe away from her sprained right ankle and pulls off her white socks. She lifts her head. A group of reporters surrounds her — some with cameras, some with fluffy gray mics and some with their phones. She tries to smile, but her lips quiver. Tears fall freely from her eyes. She wipes them with the sleeves of her black jersey, but it doesn’t stop the flow.
“It seemed like all the stars were aligning for such a perfect game in Louisville, finishing my career,” DeBeer says. “It was just so close.”
Minutes later, Jess Mruzik, Penn State’s fifth-year outside hitter, strolls into the news conference a few feet from the Louisville locker room flashing a smile. She’s holding a trophy, and part of the volleyball net is hanging off her shoulder. She’s wearing a gray hat with the words “national champions” written in blue. She sits down next to her teammates and whispers something to them. They all laugh.
Head coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley looks down at the stat sheet and gasps. She has just noticed that Mruzik took 73 swings in the NCAA volleyball national championship match on Sunday. “Seventy-three! That’s a lot,” she says away from the mic, but it picks up her voice. Mruzik nods at her coach and smiles shyly.
“If you would have told me three years ago I was going to be a national champion at the end of my career, I would have told you you were crazy,” Mruzik says. “Because three years ago I wasn’t even in the tournament.”
Thus unspooled the tale of two NCAA volleyball stars who were wearing their teams’ jerseys for the final time. As a record crowd of 21,860 watched, Jess Mruzik led Penn State to its first national championship in 10 years by pounding ball after ball to the court. Anna DeBeer tried to lead her team to its first national championship by giving every ounce of energy she could from the bench. Mruzik had 29 kills. DeBeer had zero. Penn State won its eighth championship. Louisville still has none.
Anna DeBeer made the decision to come back to Louisville for a fifth year for many reasons. The most important one? She wanted to win a national championship in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. She wanted that storybook ending to her decorated career.
In her sophomore season in 2021, the 6-foot DeBeer helped Louisville reach the elite eight for the first time in program history. She came back the next season and one-upped her performance, leading the Cardinals to their first championship game, where they fell to Texas. Last year, the Cardinals led two sets to none in the regional final against ACC rival Pitt, but Pitt rallied and knocked out the Cards.
In 2024, the Cardinals struggled to start the season, losing to Penn State and Nebraska in the first month. DeBeer told her teammates she believed in them and pumped them with energy during team huddles. The team coalesced as the season progressed. When the Cardinals, seeded No. 1, were pushed to 20-20 in the fifth set against Northern Iowa in the second round of the NCAA tournament, DeBeer was the team’s rock. She recorded her 12th double-double of the season in their five-set win. After that scare, she went on a tear, jumping hard and high and slamming the ball down with every ounce of energy she had. The Cardinals were peaking at the right time, and DeBeer was the motor propelling them.
That all came to a crashing halt in the fourth set of the national semifinals against No. 1 overall seed Pittsburgh. Up two sets to one and leading 2-0, DeBeer went up for a block with middle blocker Phekran Kong. They came down together. But DeBeer’s right foot landed on Kong’s left heel. She twisted her ankle on its side and rolled onto her belly. She lay on the court for 44 seconds. Even before she was helped off the court, DeBeer knew something was very wrong.
“I knew right when it happened that I was probably done,” DeBeer said on Sunday.
But she held on to hope. She iced it. Elevated it. Iced it again. But there wasn’t enough time. For her long-term health and pro career, the coaching staff decided she would not play. When she went to bed Saturday night and fell into an uncomfortable sleep, she knew her role was going to be different for the Cardinals.
So she showed up to the championship match in a black jersey, limping as she made her way to the sideline. She didn’t join her team for warm-ups, but stood by head coach Dani Busboom Kelly the entire time. When the match started, she stood by the court. Sometimes she bent forward, palms on her thighs, yelling instructions to Payton Petersen — who was her replacement — and Charitie Luper. She punched her fists in the air and yelled, “Come on” every time Luper slammed a kill. After Louisville lost the first set, she grabbed her team for a huddle and told them she believed in them, told them to keep their energy up. Busboom Kelly stood off to the side and watched.
DeBeer got more animated in the second set when Louisville mounted a comeback after being down 24-19. She slapped her teammates palms and screamed every time they warded off a set point. When Louisville won 32-30 after saving 10 set points, she grinned — maybe the only time she did the entire day — and almost walked onto the court.
But the Cards couldn’t keep up the momentum without their star. Petersen, who rose to the occasion in the fourth and fifth sets against Pittsburgh, tried valiantly to fill DeBeer’s absence, serving three aces. “The way Payton Petersen as a freshman took on such a hard role — I’m just so proud,” DeBeer said. But it wasn’t enough.
DeBeer put her palms over her mouth after Mruzik slammed her 29th kill of the match to give Penn State a 20-13 lead in the fourth set. DeBeer knew there was no coming back from that.
When the confetti dropped on the Penn State win, DeBeer hugged her teammates. She tried holding back her tears, but she couldn’t. She let them fall down her face. Her career as a Cardinal was over.
“I’d have done anything to be out there,” DeBeer said. “That’s the hardest part.”
Tears streamed down Jess Mruzik’s face as she hugged her teammates. She shook her teammates’ shoulders. They’d done it. National champions at last. During her on-court interview alongside head coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley, she wiped confetti off Schumacher-Cawley’s head, laughing through her tears.
Mruzik, from Livonia, Michigan, played the first three years of her career for the Wolverines. She shined for Michigan, making the Big Ten all-freshman team in 2020, the AVCA all-north region team in her sophomore year and the AVCA all-north region team in her junior season. But, after a disappointing 17-13 season where Michigan failed to make the NCAA tournament, Mruzik entered the transfer portal. Schumacher-Cawley swooped in and offered her a spot on the Penn State team.
Mruzik knew right away that the bar was high. Penn State was a seven-time national champion. So she got to work. She helped the Nittany Lions reach the regional semifinals in 2023, starting all 32 matches and recording 519 kills, before the Nittany Lions fell to Wisconsin.
When she decided to come back to campus this year, she had one goal: To win the national championship.
In September, at the beginning of the season, she would hear a piece of information that would solidify her belief that her volleyball journey was about more than just the sport: coach Schumacher-Cawley announced to the team that she was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. She knew her coach wouldn’t want the focus to be on her, so Mruzik sometimes fielded questions for her and showed up to practice every day to fulfill the motto they’d chosen at the beginning of the year: Bigger than us.
Mruzik had the best season of her career. In 37 matches, she recorded double-digit kills in all but five. In the national semifinals against Nebraska, after being down two sets to none, she lifted up her team. She swung at the ball 70 times, willing her team back. The Nittany Lions won the fifth set 15-13 and were headed to the championship game for the first time in 10 years thanks to Mruzik.
In the championship match, as DeBeer watched from the sidelines, sometimes having an intense urge to lunge into the court, Mruzik took 73 swings. Her 29 kills tied her season — and career — high.
Moments before Mruzik walked to the front of the presentation ceremony to lift up the 2024 national championship trophy with Schumacher-Cawley and her teammates, she was named the most outstanding player of the final four. She jumped up and down, holding the trophy and grinning.
Just minutes before that, DeBeer limped off the court, high-fiving fans on her way back to the locker room.
“I know she’s an ultimate competitor and to see her go down in the semifinal, I was sick to my stomach,” Mruzik said. “Because I know that, if she could play she definitely would even if she could barely walk.”
Mruzik picked up her trophy and walked away from the podium. DeBeer sat at her locker wondering “what if.”
