ERIE, Pa. – The Gannon volleyball team rallied from deficits during the second and third sets while sweeping rival Mercyhurst Tuesday night in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Quarterfinals. The verdict before a large crowd of 560 fans at the Hammermill Center sent the Lady Knights into this weekend's PSAC Final Four.
Gannon will get a chance to host the Final Four as the league's top seed. It marks the first conference final four the Lady Knights have ever hosted. Lock Haven (East #1) and California (Pa.) (West #2) will battle in Friday's first semifinal. Gannon (West #1) and Shippensburg (East #2) will face off in the second semifinal at 7:30 p.m. Saturday's championship match is slated for 7 p.m.
Head coach
Matt Darling's club picked up the program's first postseason victory since a 3-2 victory against Ferris State during the opening round of the 2003 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) Tournament. Tuesday's contest was the program's first home postseason match since 1994.
Gannon opened its PSAC quarterfinal match with a well-played first set. The Lady Knights snapped a 12-12 tie with a
Morgan Reineke (New Knoxville, Ohio/New Knoxville) kill and a block assists from Reineke and
Sarah Glancy (Walled Lake, Mich./Walled Lake Central). The squad would never trail again that set.
A quick 3-0 run gave Gannon a 19-14 advantage.
Megan Wendel (Aurora, Ohio/Kenston) and
Lauren Sazama (St. Louis, Mo./Oakville) had kills, before Glancy's service ace forced Mercyhurst to call time-out. The run eventually turned into an 8-3 blitz that gave the Lady Knights their biggest lead of the set at 24-17. A Sazama kill capped the 25-18 victory in the first set.
Mercyhurst jumped on Gannon during the second set, racing out to an 8-3 lead. The Lady Knights slowly chipped away and then maintained their distance, but still trailed 18-14 late in the set. That's when Gannon kicked it into overdrive, scoring eight of the next nine points to surge in front 22-19. The run included only three kills by Gannon as Mercyhurst committed a service error, three attack errors and a ball handling error. Moments later, Sazama pulled the plug as she did during the first set with a set-ending kill.
The third set went almost completely on the same script as the second stanza. Mercyhurst again roared out to leads of 6-1, 14-9 and 22-16. And as they did during the previous set, the Lady Knights rallied with great force. Following a Gannon time-out, a Reineke kill ignited a 10-3 run that ended the match. Gannon had six kills and one service ace during the decisive blitz. Reineke produced three of those kills and Glancy had two. A pair of block assists from Glancy and Wendel officially capped the three-set sweep.
Sazama led all players with her 19th double-double of the season, recording 14 kills and 10 digs. Reineke was the only other player on either team in double digits with 11 kills. Her accuracy was superb as she hit .310, committing only two errors in 29 attempts.
Wendel added her ninth double-double of the campaign with 32 assists and 10 digs. Other Lady Knights to reach double figures in digs included
Morgan Walters (Girard, Ohio/Girard) (14),
Taryn Graham (Huron, Ohio/Huron) (10) and
Maggie Desrosiers (Uniontown, Ohio/Hoover) (10).
Gannon, ranked third in the latest NCAA Division II Atlantic regional rankings, improved to 26-5 overall with its 10th consecutive victory against a PSAC team. The only setback during that span was a 3-2 non-conference loss at Findlay. Mercyhurst, tabbed sixth in the regional rankings, dropped to 25-10. The Lakers will now await word on a possible NCAA Division II Tournament bid. Meanwhile, Gannon will host the PSAC Final Four this weekend at the Hammermill Center. Updates and information on the weekend championship will be available later in the week on gannonsports.com.
