Volleyball's plans altered by Hurricane Floyd

The Quakers missed their flight to the San Francisco Tournament yesterday. The Penn volleyball team was all set to head to California to face its toughest test of the season at the Golden Gate Invitational yesterday. But it turns out that the mere act of heading to California might be the toughest test of all. The Quakers (3-2) got as far as the Philadelphia International Airport yesterday morning, hoping that their 9 a.m. flight to the west coast would not be canceled. When they arrived, Hurricane Floyd was already busy erasing flight after flight from the departure board. "We were thinking it was going to be canceled," Penn senior Karin Witte said. "All the flights around us were getting canceled but they were trying to keep the flight to San Francisco going, and then finally they did cancel it." So the Red and Blue were forced to stay in Philadelphia for an extra day. They practiced as usual in the afternoon and expect to be able to fly west this morning, arriving in time for their game against San Francisco at 10 p.m. If the Quakers cannot get in the air by noon, though, they will not be able to make the trip. "We'll all be disappointed if we don't get to go," Penn coach Kerry Major said. "But the team will bounce back if we don't get to go." The Quakers remained upbeat, however, and are still looking forward to their games and the trip. "This is all just surrounding our trip getting there," Witte said. "Even though it's inconvenient, it certainly doesn't subtract from the fact that we're going there to play and get good experience." Floyd was another story. "I always thought it was a mean person's name, so now it's confirmed," Major said. "I will not name my kid Floyd." Awaiting the Quakers arrival are the Dons (7-2), who had headaches of their own last week when they traveled to the Blackbird Invitational in Brooklyn, N.Y. "San Francisco Airport is the home of delays," San Francisco coach David Noble said. "You just have to be flexible about it." When play finally does get underway, Penn will have its hands full with the Dons, who have won their last seven matches. In addition to facing a hot team, the Quakers will have to deal with a team that does not underestimate them, as Colgate, La Salle and Rutgers may have done last weekend. In the matches against those teams, Penn was able to make an early run. That will likely not be the case tonight. "I know Kerry and she gets the best out of her players," Noble said. "A lot of times her teams have a lot of ball control, and we don't expect this team to be any different." While the coaches know each other, the players do not. The Quakers do not see this as a problem, however, because they know what they want to do on this trip. "The focus is on our play," Witte said. "We'll do what we need to do to achieve our smaller goals -- passing well, playing good defense -- and hopefully things will work out." Much as they did in the season-opening Colgate Tournament, the Quakers know that they are facing strong competition, and as Major says, that "on paper, we should lose." Still, Penn took three out of four in Hamilton, N.Y., and was able to improve as a team. That will be the real goal in San Francisco, where the Quakers will also face Fresno State and Cal State-Fullerton tomorrow night. "We can pull off these wins because we have that heart and soul," Major said. "That's what I'm looking for -- that heart, that soul, that courage and determination, and everything we practice on defense. That's what I'm trying to develop for our team." All of the mental development and the tougher competition is really to get ready for the Red and Blue's Ivy League schedule, where Major is confident that the Quakers can hold their own physically. "We are playing better teams right now," Major said. "But I want us to have good long rallies, play good defense. A lot of the things that we tried to work on with Rutgers, I think we can do this weekend. If we work through that, I think we can reach a level of toughness where no one can stop us when we reach someone at our [physical] level."