CLARION SPIKES RELOAD WITH THIRD STRAIGHT NCAA PLAYOFF BERTH

Golden Eagles also capture first outright PSAC Playoff spot since 1990

            Turning a rebuilding season into a reloading season, the Clarion University women’s volleyball team put together another very successful campaign in 2004 qualifying for the NCAA Division II playoffs for the third straight year while appearing in the PSAC Playoffs outright for the first time since 1990.

            All told, the Golden Eagles finished 29-9 overall and 6-4 in the PSAC-West with the 29 wins being the second most in all-time in school history.

            “It was a good year,” Clarion’s fourth-year head coach Tracey Fluharty said. “It was great to make both the PSAC and NCAA playoffs when we had no idea what to expect from the team at the beginning of the year. I know the team worked very hard to achieve what we achieved. And I am proud of what we accomplished.”

            Clarion, which lost in the opening round of the PSAC’s to East Stroudsburg and in the first-round of the NCAA’s to Lees-McRae, came into the 2004 campaign having to replace three starters – setter Jackie Hill, outside hitter Melanie Bull and defensive specialist Laurie Hepler – whose names were written all over the Clarion record book. Both Hill and Bull were first-team All-Region players last year with Hill holding the school record for set assists in a career and Bull topping the school record books in digs and kills.

            “We knew we had lost some quality players coming into the season,” Fluharty said. “But we also knew we had talented players coming back and talented players coming in. But we couldn’t predict how good we were going to be. We didn’t know how long it was going to take us to gel as a team.”

            It took the Golden Eagles about a month to gel as a team.

            After starting the year 7-5, Clarion rolled off 22 wins in its next 23 games including win streaks of 13 and nine.

            “I think the key to our success was finding seven players who could play together and get the job done,” Fluharty said. “At the start of the year, we used a couple of different lineups and kept experimenting. We had mixed results. Finally, we were able to discover seven, eight or nine players who could play together. They put it all together on the court at the same time.”

            The result of finding a solid lineup for the Golden Eagles was a total team effort in achieving the 2004 success that included four players named PSAC-West All-Conference, three spikers named Daktronics All-Region and two single-season school records falling.

            The two records set included Hill’s single-season set assist mark (1,552) being broken by junior Ashley Kreiner, who had been a defensive player her first two seasons, and Bull’s single-season digs record (602) being smashed by freshman Libero Vicky Gentile.

            Kreiner finished the season with 1,679 assists while averaging 13.33 assists per game, which ranked first in the PSAC and 10^th in the nation. She also added 134 kills, 299 digs, 79 blocks and 16 service aces. Her play earned her first-team Daktronics Atlantic Region and second-team PSAC-West setter honors.

            She currently ranks fifth in school history with 1,688 set assists and ninth with 1,095 digs.

            Gentile finished the year with 711 digs while averaging 5.43 digs per game, which ranked fourth in the PSAC and earned her second-team Daktronics Atlantic Region honors.

            Joining Kreiner and Gentile on the Daktronics All-Region team was senior middle hitter Colleen Sherk, who was a first-team selection after also being chosen first-team PSAC-West.

            Sherk led the Golden Eagles in kills per game (4.10 – 3^rd in the PSAC) while finishing with 517 kills, the fifth most in a single season at Clarion, and a .399 hitting percentage, which ranked second in the PSAC and 13^th in the nation. She also added 105 blocks.

In her career, Sherk finished third in school history in kills (1,216) and sixth in blocks (415).

Two additional players joined Sherk and Kreiner on the PSAC-West teams with senior outside hitter Sara Heyl named to the first team and junior middle hitter Karen Stoklosa being a second-team selection.

Heyl led the Golden Eagles with 531 kills while averaging 4.08 kills per game, which was good for fourth best in the PSAC. She also added 499 digs, 68 blocks and 54 set assists.

In her career, she finished sixth in school history with 1,026 kills and fourth in digs with 1,376.

            Stoklosa led the Golden Eagles with 191 blocks (1.5 per game) and ranked fourth in the PSAC in blocks per game. She also added 250 kills, 95 digs and 32 service aces.

            In her career, Stoklosa ranks seventh in school history in blocks with 372.

            In addition to Sherk and Heyl, Clarion had one addition senior in 2004 – outside hitter Tonya Zatko.

            Zatko, who missed almost her entire junior season with an injury, came back this season to play in 79 games and finished with 167 kills, 39 blocks and 37 digs. In her career, she amassed 561 kills, 145 blocks and 135 digs.

            Joining Gentile in leading a Clarion defense that averaged 18.4 digs per game were defensive specialists Heather Byrne, a junior, and Jenn Sacco, a sophomore.

            Byrne had 367 digs (2.87 per game) while also contributing 19 blocks, 62 kills and 35 service aces.

            Sacco added 373 digs (3.03 per game) while contributing 21 service aces.

            Clarion also had two freshmen step into offensive roles during the season and contribute to the success.

            Outside hitter Christina Steiner played in 60 games with 156 kills (2.6 per game), 37 digs and 23 blocks, while outside hitter Sarah Fries played in 77 games with 172 kills (2.23 per game), 36 blocks and 16 digs.

            Additional players for Clarion included sophomores Lindsay Banner (33, kills, 15 aces) and Halee Schnur (11 digs) and freshmen Amanda Angermeier (35 kills), Lauren Wiefling (10 kills), Tressa Dvorsky (10 kills), Lindsay Wiefling (5 kills), Nicole Harrison (4 kills) and Kristi Fiorillo (4 kills, 14 digs).

            GOLDEN EAGLE NOTES – Fluharty is 109-39 (73.6 percent) in her four years at Clarion including 86-23 (78.9 percent) the past three seasons … Prior to appearing in the 2002 NCAA playoffs, which was the first-ever NCAA playoff appearance for Clarion, the Golden Eagles last appeared in a national volleyball tournament in 1977 when the Pat Ferguson coached team finished sixth at the EAIAW Regionals in Binghamton, NY with an overall record of 14-5 … The 29 wins this season are second most only to the 31 put up by the 2002 squad (31-5).