GETTYSBURG, Pa. – The Gettysburg College volleyball team will have to assume the mantle of road warriors in the quest for its 12th Centennial Conference championship which begins with a trip to Swarthmore College on Wednesday, Nov. 3.

For the first time since the conference tournament was established in 1997, Gettysburg (16-13, 7-3 CC) will have to play three matches away from the friendly confines of Bream Gym in its championship run, beginning with Wednesday's opening-round match up at Swarthmore (17-10, 7-3 CC) at 7 p.m. The Bullets were only a .500 club away from Bream this fall, with one of those losses coming at the hands of the very same Garnet on Oct. 23.

“When we played Swarthmore the first time, it was a Saturday on senior day and family weekend,” noted Head Coach Leah Bernier. “They had a lot of fans and it was hard to play there with all of the noise. I'm hoping that it will be a different environment this time and the fact that we were swept in three sets will give my players the drive to come out swinging hard.”

Gettysburg has played at home in the postseason more often than not. The Bullets have hosted the championships seven times, the last in 2008, in addition to hosting a first-round match in 2007. The squad has taken home the crown on enemy ground just once, in 2005 when it defeated Haverford College and Franklin & Marshall College.

Some of Gettysburg's best performances have come away from the home court this season, including winning the Elizabethtown College Tournament on Sept. 24-25 and a sweep of Susquehanna University on Oct. 13. Of course, growing pains have followed the young team, which features eight freshmen that have seen time on the court this fall.

“I think that this team is learning that we can't take any team, any set, any point, any ball for granted and that they have to play every ball like it is match point,” said Bernier. “We certainly have the physical talent to get us where we want to go but with so many young players, we have struggled with the mentality of the game. I think that they will go into this game with a new resolve for the bigger picture.”

The team was more consistent as the year drew to a close, winning five of six matches with its only setback the aforementioned sweep at the hands of Swarthmore. During that stretch, the Bullets averaged a dozen kills per set, while hitting a respectable 24.3 percent on the attack.

While youth dominates the roster number-wise, it is Gettysburg's upperclassmen that take center stage from match-to-match. The team's top three attackers are junior Virginia Hogan (Alpharetta, Ga./Chattahoochee) and seniors Nicole Burns (Horsham, Pa./Hatboro) and Kate Yoder (Emmaus, Pa./Emmaus). All three average over two kills per set on the attack, with Burns also aiming to become the first Bullet to lead the Centennial Conference in blocking since Catherine Schott '00 in 1997.

Apart from the numbers, a key element to the postseason equation is experience and all of the returning Bullets feature that trait. Gettysburg has made the postseason in each of the last three years, including playing in the conference finale in the last two.

“The experience of my upperclassmen is key to this type of a situation,” said Bernier. “It is helpful that they have been there before, but that's an experience that is hard to impart on someone else and we have to rely on four to five freshmen on this team. So they are going to have to find it within themselves to play for something bigger.”

“I know that this team can pull this off from the spot we are in, they will just have to be on their game more than ever before.”

Gettysburg leads all Centennial institutions with 11 championships in volleyball, but the Bullets have been held out of the top spot since 2005. The path to the trophy once again lies through Haverford (18-12, 10-0 CC), which has won each of the last four titles. The winner of Wednesday's first round will face the Fords on Saturday, Nov. 6, at noon. The other semifinal between Franklin & Marshall (20-6, 8-2 CC) and Johns Hopkins University (19-11, 8-2 CC) will start around 2:30 with Saturday's winners squaring off for the conference title and the automatic qualifier for the NCAA Division III Tournament on Sunday, Nov. 7, at 1 p.m.