LaSalle spoils Volleyball's Senior Night

Penn opened up a 2-0 lead but crumbled as the Explorers won 3-2. Last night, the three seniors on the Penn volleyball team -- K.C. Potter, Kristel Weaver and Karin Witte -- were honored prior to the Quakers' match against La Salle. Their final contest at the Palestra started with a bang but ended with a whimper as the Explorers came from behind to defeat Penn, 3-2. The three seniors opened the match together in the Red and Blue's front row, and the Quakers were clearly invigorated. "We came out strong," Penn coach Kerry Major said. "It was the strongest start we've had to any game." Still, La Salle (15-13) stayed close and took a 14-13 lead late in the game. Throughout this season, Penn (12-12) has taken the lead only to see its opponent come back to reach 15 points first, but this time, it was the Quakers that came back. La Salle's Autumn Krauss had a chance to serve out the game and the Quakers breathed a sigh of relief when they watched the serve sail just long. On the next ball, the Explorers were not able to surmount an attack. Weaver then gave Penn a 15-14 lead with a kill into the La Salle backcourt. Stephanie Horan's next serve sailed wide but Potter's kill on the subsequent ball gave Penn another chance. Kelly Szczerba's block -- one of her team-leading five solo blocks on the night -- wrapped up the 16-14 Penn win. Clearly rattled, the Explorers fell behind 12-3 in the second game. At that point, La Salle coach Jason Klotkowski called time-out. At that point, the match started to turn around. La Salle scored eight of the next 10 points before Penn finished off a 15-11 victory on the best of Horan's 20 kills. The sophomore dove with the intention of simply digging the ball, but got it high enough into the air to float over the net, where it bounced into the La Salle front row. "We came out really fired up for this match and really wanted to take a win for our last match," Potter said. "But we let them back into it in the third game." Even though Penn had a 2-0 lead in games, the momentum had shifted. La Salle came out in the third game and raced to a 7-1 lead as the Quakers felt they had the match in hand. "That was the key to the match," Klotkowski said. "We were up 7-1 and it progressed from there. They got it within one, and if one ball bounced the other way, they probably would have beaten us in three, and it would have been a short night for them." Playing with as much heart as they have all season, the Quakers came back to eventually tie the score of the third game at 10. The Explorers answered back, taking a 13-10 lead, and then a 14-12 lead. Penn got to within one point and had a chance to tie after Potter's kill, one of her final 15 at the Palestra. After a sideout, Horan was a little bit too aggressive and hit the ball wide. La Salle had a 15-13 win. "[The] third game was the reason why we lost the match," Major said. "[In the] fourth and fifth [games], La Salle had all of their confidence back, and we had lost some confidence, and it's a struggle to get that going again. I truly believe that the match was lost in the third game. The fifth game we played all heart and all that, but it's just luck by then." Penn lost the fourth game handily, falling behind 10-0 before mounting a mini-comeback. The Explorers took the game 15-4. The Quakers headed to a fifth game for the first time since September 18, when they beat Cal State-Fullerton in San Francisco. Still on a roll, La Salle jumped all over the Red and Blue, taking a 5-0 lead. In the rally point system, Penn got on the scoreboard when Szczerba earned a sideout for the Quakers. Melissa Hodge's wide attempt for the Explorers made it 5-2, but La Salle then earned a sideout to go up 6-2. That's when the decisive game really turned. Horan ripped a kill to make the score 6-3, or so everyone at the Palestra thought. The referees conferred and ruled that Szczerba had touched the net, resulting in a violation, a sideout and a point for La Salle, making the margin 7-2. "That's a huge momentum break for us," Klotkowski said. "Any time you can get ahead that much in rally [scoring], you put the opposing team on the run. They were playing a lot better volleyball than us the end of the match [after La Salle went up 7-5], but it was just too far to come back." But did Szczerba really touch the net? It's a call that will certainly haunt the Penn seniors for some time, if not the rest of the team. "That's a tough call for them," Klotkowski said. "I didn't see [Szczerba touch the net]." The teams went back and forth after that point, with La Salle eventually taking a 13-6 lead. In the teams' previous meeting, in September at the Colgate Tournament, Penn fell behind 14-7 before winning 16-14 in the fifth game. The Quakers got as close as 14-12, but La Salle closed out the match, winning 14-16, 11-15, 15-13, 15-4, 15-12. The seniors performed well for Penn last night. Potter had 15 kills, Weaver had 10 and Witte had eight to go with her three block assists. The statistical performance of note, though, belonged to Jodie Antypas, whose 59 assists, one short of a career high, moved her into fourth place on the Penn all-time list. "It's not really something I was thinking about," Antypas said. "I didn't even really know about it until I read the paper this morning. I'm happy about it but I don't know if that can quite overcome the loss. "We've played a lot of matches like that as a team, and we have to get from playing really well and losing to playing really well and winning."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.