Attack clears Volleyball's week

From an athletic standpoint, the Penn volleyball team was affected by last Tuesday's tragic events more than any other Penn sports team.

As a result of the Penn Athletic Department's decision to cancel all sporting events from last Thursday through Sunday, the Quakers missed four matches over the course of last week.

"With many people so close to New York right now, everyone's been affected, even if family members weren't injured," Penn sophomore right-side hitter Lauren Carter said. "[The cancellations] were also just out of respect for the rest of the nation and those people that were injured or lost their families."

Teammate and fellow sophomore Katie Brandt also emphasized the point of respect.

"I think [the cancellations] were necessary because it shows respect for the families and the victims," the outside hitter said.

First, last Tuesday's match scheduled at the Palestra against crosstown rival Temple was postponed. After continued communication with the Owls, that match has been rescheduled for tomorrow.

But the other three matches will not be played this season. Slated for last Friday and Saturday, matches against California State-Fullerton, Oakland and University of California-Riverside were part of the Quakers' biannual trip out to the West Coast.

Penn was scheduled to leave last Thursday night, but after the transpiring of last Tuesday's events, the trip was cancelled.

The decision not to fly was especially tough because more than half of the team hails from California, and thus a chance to go home and see family and friends was missed.

"We were going to be playing [the matches] 20 minutes from my house, and my parents were organizing the whole Disneyland setup, so I really wanted to go home and see my family and my friends," said Brandt, who hails from Irvine, Calif. "But in the long run, it's more important for people who needed those flights to get home to take them rather than for us to go out there and play."

Sophomore middle hitter Alyssa Parsons, a native of Campbell, Calif., also wanted to fly out to the West Coast, but likewise put the situation in perspective.

"I was disappointed because I have no family out on the East Coast, and during this time of the tragedy, I was very excited to see my entire family," Parsons said. "But by not boarding the plane, that means 20 plane seats opened up for people to go to funerals, visit people or just get home to their families. It's more important than a typical volleyball game on some Saturday."

Instead of traveling west or playing matches, the Quakers held practice every day from Wednesday through Saturday. But the team first spent an hour last Wednesday talking about its thoughts and feelings.

"We sat around in a circle and let our players vent out their emotions," Penn coach Kerry Major said, "because I think that was the most frustrating thing, that people didn't know how to feel or whether what they were feeling was right or wrong."

After about an hour of sharing their thoughts and helping each other deal with the emotions of the time, the Quakers had a shortened, less-intense practice.

"It felt so good for them to be able to work out," Major said, "because if your body shuts down as well as your mind, you're going to have double [the amount of] frustration."

Intensity gradually picked up over the course of the week, and Saturday's practice was more or less business as usual.

"Coach just wanted to get back in the swing of things because that's just one of the better things to do after something like that happens," Penn freshman middle hitter Lynzy Caton said.

And while it was still difficult to keep last week's events off their mind, the Quakers perhaps had an easier time moving past the situation because the team's closeness enabled each player to feel that she was in a supportive atmosphere.

"The closeness of the team allowed a lot of people to open up and say things that they didn't really know that they felt until they said them," Major said. "[The team members] were the first people that we reached towards last Tuesday, and we got the whole team together in the office.

"If we couldn't be next to our families, the team was the next best thing."

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