Penn College Women's Volleyball Team in Home Playoff Action Wednesday
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
The Pennsylvania College of Technology women's volleyball team is seeded No. 3 and will host No. 6 Penn State Beaver at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Bardo Gymnasium on West Third Street in first-round action of the Pennsylvania State Collegiate Athletic Association playoffs.
The Wildcats were 13-3 during the conference's regular season and 16-6 overall. In a preseason tournament Aug. 27, Penn College beat Penn State Beaver in four games. Then, on Oct. 9 in PSUAC play, Penn State Beaver dropped Penn College in five games. Beaver was 10-6 in conference matches and is 11-15 overall. The winner advances to Friday's 8:30 p.m. semifinals at Penn State University's Rec Hall. The championship is set for 1 p.m. Saturday at Rec Hall.
Penn College players Samantha Davis (North Apollo), Lindsay Moyer (Canton), Lyndsey Smith (Mechanicsburg), Ashley Matson (Troy), Tara Powell (Burgettstown), Paula Monteiro (Brazil) and Amanda Miller (Northern Cambria) all are among the conference's statistical leaders.
"Our team has had several prayers answered lately with the matches this past weekend finalizing a third-place regular season position and ultimately allowing us to host a first round match," coach Bambi Hawkins said.
"Lyndsey Smith's dad, Clint, said, "It seemed your girls showed something on Saturday I had not really seen from them all year and that was the willingness as a team to just do the hard defensive work required to finish a good team that they had on the ropes. Saturday they refused to let DuBois ever take a breath. That was fun for us to watch,'" she continued.
"Our ladies have been working hard in practices to make team and individual corrections that we expect will make the difference in a match against an opponent like Penn State Beaver. It was great to see how quickly our ladies bounced back to play one of their best matches of the season against Penn State Fayette the next day (after the loss to Penn State Beaver).
"As for playoff hopes," Hawkins continued, "I have stopped trying to figure out who is going to be playing next since this season has had a number of surprises. I never would have expected that Penn State Beaver would be coming to us in the first round. This has been a year of intense volleyball as teams have traded wins and losses or taken each other to five sets unexpectedly. That said, I am confident that Penn College's Lady Wildcats are a winning combination and we are going to enjoy all of the events and emotions that go along with playoff matches.
"I cannot argue with a team captain's Facebook status that states, "Three more wins until Kentucky (and a berth in the United States Collegiate Athletic Association national championships),'" Hawkins added.
Second-seeded Penn State Fayette hosts No. 7 Penn State Brandywine and No. 4 PSU DuBois hosts No. 5 Penn State Wilkes-Barre in other conference quarterfinals. Unbeaten Penn State Mont Alto is seeded No. 1 and drew a first-round bye.
In 11 seasons under Hawkins, Penn College has reached the playoffs seven times. It won the conference championship in 2004, finished second the next three years, lost in the first round of the playoffs two years ago and fell in the semifinals a year ago.