Sophomore setter Megan Tryon beamed with excitement in anticipation of the volleyball team's road trip this weekend.
She is finally going home.
The trip will be extra special for Tryon and eight of her teammates because they all hail from California. This weekend they will have the rare chance to play in front of their parents, giving them more fans than they usually have at the Palestra.
Armed with this added support, the Quakers will try to earn their first-ever win against the University of San Francisco (8-4) today in USF's War Memorial Gym. Tomorrow, the Red and Blue face off against Seattle (2-11) and St. Mary's (8-3) in SMC's McKeon Pavilion in Moraga, Calif.
USF, 3-0 all time against Penn, features sophomore outside hitter Sarah Mandala. She owns the Dons' freshman record for kills and has averaged 3.89 kills per set this year, up from the 3.4 she averaged in her impressive rookie campaign.
Complementing her is senior middle blocker Alix Gombos, a two-time All-West Coast Conference Honorable Mention.
Penn coach Kerry Carr will focus on blocking Mandala and Gombos as part of her four-point game plan, which preaches two keys to the game on offense and two on defense.
They hope their improvements from practice this week will carry over to the games.
"As a whole, we've picked up our communication on blocking, so we can get together, close the hole, and take care of seams," Tryon said. "We're penetrating the net a lot better and sealing, so as a whole, our blocking has taken leaps."
In addition to contributing to Penn's improved blocking, Tryon will help the Quakers execute a balanced offensive attack - one of Carr's offensive keys.
"Annie Magnuson has been getting a million kills, so we're going to keep her going and keep feeding her the ball," Tryon said. "Also, we'll spread it around so we can keep her open."
Junior middle blocker Ashley Hawkins will reap the benefits of this spread-offense approach.
"Bringing the middle into the attack as a bigger part of our offense is really going to be big for us," Tryon said.
The final key to the game, according to Carr, is reducing errors. The Quakers have committed 37 more attack errors and 22 more serve-receive errors than their opponents this year.
"If we do those four things we'll be successful," Carr said. "We probably will win the game as well."
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