Lady Roaring Lions champs once again
Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus poses for a team shot with the PSUAC championship trophy it won in Recreation Hall at Penn State University on Oct. 30. The Lady Roaring Lions, who defeated Penn State Beaver, 3-1, in the final, went on to finish a program-best third in the USCAA Championship in Virginia Beach this weekend.
Submitted photo
Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus poses for a team shot with the PSUAC championship trophy it won in Recreation Hall at Penn State University on Oct. 30. The Lady Roaring Lions, who defeated Penn State Beaver, 3-1, in the final, went on to finish a program-best third in the USCAA Championship in Virginia Beach this weekend.
The Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus volleyball team is back where it belongs, atop the PSUAC mountain, although it took a thrilling fifth set to win the program’s 11th conference crown.
“I am so incredibly proud of this team,” said an emotional head coach Sam Swetz. “I am honored and blessed to be their coach.”
Tuesday night, Fayette (21-7) jumped out to a 2-0 lead, but Penn State Beaver (17-16) took the next two sets to set up the thrilling fifth set.
“Our team is a team full of fight,” said Swetz. “I never doubted them.”
In the opening set, Fayette jumped out to a 12-3 lead and cruised to a 25-17 win.
Beaver gave the Lady Roaring Lions a challenge in the second set as the match was tied 16-16, but Fayette went on a 9-5 run to close it out, 25-21.
Up two sets to none, Fayette found itself in a fight and Beaver won the third set, 25-16 and the fourth set, 25-15 to force a deciding fifth set.
In the thrilling final set, Fayette trailed 9-5 but stormed back.
Down 9-5 and then 11-8, Swetz called perfectly timed timeouts to talk strategy with the team.
The team fed off of both timeouts, and with the second, it went on a five-point run to go from trialing 11-8 to leading 13-11.
Beaver tied the set at 14-14, but a block by Laurel Highlands graduate Siteri Tale gave Fayette a 15-14 lead, and the Lady Roaring Lions won by a deuce off of a Madison Knight kill following an assist from Carmichaels grad Jadyn Barnish.
Barnish finished with 46 assists and nine digs, Tale had 19 digs and eight blocks, Chanel Porter had 22 digs, Albert Gallatin grad Machaela Hall had eight digs and Uniontown grad Anei Toaisi had 11 digs.
Fayette’s domination continues as the program has won 11 out of the 21 PSUAC championships.
Next up for Fayette is the USCAA championships from Nov. 8-11.