Centennial Conference Championship Site
GETTYSBURG, Pa. – The Gettysburg College volleyball team will kick of its postseason run with a road trip to Haverford College in the first round of the Centennial Conference Tournament on Thursday, Nov. 1, at 7:30 p.m.
Thursday's meeting was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but the contest was pushed back one day due to the potential impact of Hurricane Sandy.
Gettysburg (15-13, 6-4 CC) wrapped up the fifth and final seed for the conference tournament and will face fourth seed Haverford (20-9, 7-3 CC). The Bullets defeated the Fords 3-1 back on Sept. 29, but the Fords have won the last four meetings in the CC playoffs, including in the championship match in both 2008 and 2009.
“It helps and hurts at the same time,” said Head Coach
Leah Bernier about her team's early-season victory over the Fords. “It helps them to realize that it can be done, but it sometimes can hurt them in thinking that it was done once and therefore will automatically be done again. We have to go into every match knowing that we have to work hard in order to win and that the other team is going to be working just as hard to try to beat us.”
The winner of Thursday's meeting will advance to the CC semifinals hosted by top seed Franklin & Marshall College (17-13, 9-1 CC) on Nov. 3-4. The Diplomats will face the winner between Gettysburg and Haverford at noon, while second seed Johns Hopkins University (27-3, 9-1 CC) will square off with No. 3 Swarthmore College (19-4, 8-2 CC) at 2:30 p.m.
Gettysburg, which finished conference runner-up to Johns Hopkins last season, dropped its final three matches of the regular season, including back-to-back losses to Franklin & Marshall and Johns Hopkins.
“The last couple of games have been particularly challenging for us because of many different factors, including injury and illness as much as our mentality,” noted Bernier. “I think that seeing where we are currently, and the things that we are lacking, will hopefully motivate us…to use what we have to be a threat to the other team.”
The Bullets have fought to the bitter end in every decision this season. The team went down in three sets only five times, while going the maximum five sets seven times, including hard-fought losses to both Swarthmore and Franklin & Marshall.
Gettysburg has been the most dominant program in the history of the Centennial Conference, winning 11 titles in 19 years. Despite three appearances in the championship match, the Bullets have gone without a conference crown since 2005. To get back to the top, the Orange and Blue will need to capitalize on every available opportunity on the court.
“We need to use all of the tools that we have,” said Bernier. “If these girls get in the right frame of mind and really start to play they have a good shot at the championship.”
