Coming into a grueling weekend against No. 18 Minnesota and No. 17 Penn State, Oregon head coach Trent Kersten was likely to end up sifting through the positives and negatives of losing performances. After upsetting Minnesota for his first ranked win at the helm, he ended up doing so following a four-set loss to Penn State.

“Hopefully we’re pretty detached from results, that’s what I mean by it’s only one,” Kersten said. “Last night — it wasn’t a statement, it wasn’t this, it wasn’t that. We get the Instagram post of an upset, but that shouldn’t matter. The only thing that should matter for us is the belief that we have coming into the room the next day.”

Regardless of what the win counted for, Oregon (12-6, 3-5 Big Ten) had already secured a great weekend for the program before No. 17 Penn State (11-7, 5-3 Big Ten) flew into Eugene looking to bounce back from its second unranked loss early in Big Ten play to Washington in five sets.. Ducks freshman Alanah Clemente matched Nittany Lions reigning All-American Kennedy Martin for long stretches of the match, and was helped by a dominant late push by graduate student Sophia Meyers, but it wasn’t enough to beat the reigning national champions. 

Neither team could pull away early in the first set, with Penn State responding to two three-point Oregon runs with a three-point and four-point run. Neither team led by more than two until Penn State took a 21-18 lead on a kill by Martin, prompting Kersten to use his first timeout. Martin went on to record a match-high 26 kills.

“I don’t know if you ever shut down Kennedy Martin,” Kersten said after the match. “She deserves all the flowers that she gets and all the recognition.”

Oregon took back-to-back points on kills by Clemente coming out of the timeout, with the second including a pancake by Cora Taylor. It became clear that Clemente was the Ducks’ hot hand, and they weren’t afraid to take advantage. By the end of the match, Clemente matched her career-high in kills of 23 — set the night before — and set a new career-high with 52 attacks.

“What Alanah is doing for our team and for our community right now is pretty special,” Kersten said. “This is gonna be the hardest year for her to do that, and so I can’t wait for us to be three years down the road and laughing at some of these moments where (we’re asking), ‘Can we set her three times in a row in a rally?’ and then her not blinking in her senior year.”

Penn State pushed its lead to 23-20 with kills by Martin and Caroline Jurevicius, and Kersten used his second timeout to try to stave off the match point. Clemente continued her dominance, recording her seventh and eighth kills of the set, but Penn State responded both times and took the set 25-22.

Clemente retained her attacking form from set one, securing the first two points of set two on a lofted hit into the middle of Penn State’s defense and a more typical massive swing.

Midway through the set, Iva Šucurovic recorded her second kill to put the Ducks ahead 12-7 and force a Nittany Lions timeout. Šucurovic and Clemente had provided all seven of Oregon’s second-set kills, with Šucurovic recording two and Clemente the other five.

The first Duck not named Clemente or Šucurovic to record a second-set kill was the usual suspect, Valentina Vaulet, on a swing that was blocked out of bounds to extend Oregon’s lead to 17-13.

The Ducks thought they had taken the set on a block, but an out-of-bounds call was confirmed after Kersten challenged. Vaulet left no doubt on the next point, rising above the logo at center court and landing an attack just inside the back line to take set two from the reigning national champions.

It took Clemente much longer to record her first kill of set three than either of the first two, but she made up for two attack errors with a kill and a block, combining with Šucurovic to hold Penn State’s lead to 13-11. 

After Penn State pushed its lead back to two, Kersten used his first timeout. Oregon quickly re-tied the set at 21 with Clemente’s 18th kill and an attack error. The set continued to go back and forth, but Penn State took advantage of the amount of time Oregon had spent playing from behind and took the set 25-23.

Sheppard and Meyers combined to give the Ducks an early lead with each recording an ace, and Meyers adding two kills with the second sparking a three-point run that put Oregon ahead 7-3.

Penn State got back in the set with a three-point run, and then middle blocker Maggie Mendelson had a massive individual sequence where she had a part in two blocks, then dunked a set over the net for a 14-12 lead. 

Down by three points in a potentially decisive set, desperation began to set in for Oregon, and its playmakers provided the response it needed. Clemente sparked a four-point run with a kill from the back row, before Šucurovic added a service ace and Vaulet recorded a kill of her own. With a solo block by Holley McFadden, it was a four-point run to take an 18-17 lead.

Meyers had a dominant end to the match, stepping up as a leader after a lapse in communication allowed a harmless ball to fall in the middle of Oregon’s defense. She recorded three Oregon kills in a row, following each with a fist pump and a scream.

“She has the ability to do that in any given match,” Kersten said. “We have some areas to grow for everyone and we’re gonna address those things, but to have that sort of confidence in those moments is a big deal, and she has it.”

When Oregon needed to push the set past 25 to stay alive, it was Šucurovic and Clemente once again. 

Šucurovic recorded her sixth kill of the match on a swing from the middle, and Clemente found a way to add her 23rd after jumping too early and settling for a weak push over the net that got over Penn State’s blockers.

With Oregon ahead 24-22, Martin powered Penn State’s three-point run to the win with a kill and the match-ending service ace.

Oregon won’t get a break from ranked opponents in the fifth week of Big Ten play, flying down to Los Angeles to face No. 23 UCLA on Oct. 22 and hosting No. 9 Wisconsin on Oct. 26.