BEACON SPORTS HOUSING AND FOOD SERVICES ATHLETE OF THE WEEK Whitney Putnam NAME: Women’s Soccer SPORT: Freshman CLASS: DATE: November 6, 2006 Whitney Putnam (Erie/VttlaMaria) has been named the Housing and Food Services Athlete of the Week. Putnam led the Penn State Behrend women’s soccer team to an auto matic bid in the national tournament with a 2-1 victory over rival Frostburg State in the AMCC Championship. Putnam was a part of both goals, scoring once and getting an assist on the other. Putnam leads the high-powered Behrend offense with 27 points on 11 goals and five assists. Behrend will meet defending national champion Messiah on Friday, November 10 at Ithaca College. Housing and Food Services Athlete of the Week is selected by the Sports Information Staff. Lad women’s soccer team heads to Ithaca After going through two-a-days in August, the worst field conditions in years at Penn State Behrend and a grueling training regiment the hard work has paid off for the Behrend Lady Lions Soccer team. The women captured their fifth AMCC Championship on Saturday with a 2-1 victory over Frostburg State. The Lady Lions prepare for their first round NCAA match at Ithaca this Saturday The Lady Lions started a phenomenal week with a win last Wednesday against Laßoche in the AMCC semi-finals. The women got off to a slow start in the first half, which ended in a 0-0 tie. The Lady Lions didn’t waste any time in the second half, getting an early goal from Katie Ritchey to take the lead 1-0. Laßoche answered right back with a laser from the top of the 18 yard box. The game appeared to be headed into overtime, but Ritchey wasn’t willing to let that happen. Ritchey settled a rebound from a comer kick by Nikki Frisbee, dribbled her way back down to the touchline and sent a lofty shot towards the goal, which found the side netting with 15 minutes remaining in the game. Whitney Putnam sealed the game with a breakaway goal in the 90th minute. Head coach Patrick O’Driscoll was more than satisfied by the victory. "I was happy with the win. The most important thing at this time of the year is the result. Of course, our plan is to win the final game. We are well prepared to do this and will just have to perform well on the day,” he said. Women seeded second in EC AC’s The Penn State Behrend women’s volleyball team was one victory away from its third AMCC Championship title and their second consecutive NCAA tournament bid. However the top seeded Behrend team fell to rival Penn State Altoona three matches to one this past Saturday at the Junker Center. The Lions, who beat Altoona on the road last week by the same score of three matches to one, were eliminated from the NCAA tournament picture with the loss. The women started the weekend looking as strong and dominant as they ever had. The Lady Lions were seeded first in the AMCC Championships and schedualed to play fourth seeded Lake Erie College. The women won their opening match in three straight games. The Lady Lions were playing, together well and were looking forward to the next days game against rivals Penn State Altoona. The Lady Lions, who closed out the regular season with a 27-3 overall record, found themselves in an unfamiliar position early on in the AMCC finals after dropping the first game 30-26. The Behrend women pulled even in the match with a 30-22 win in the second game. In the third game the Lady Lions took a commanding lead, and it seemed that all roads led to the NCAA tournament. Just when all seamed to be clicki; the Altoona tad went on a 12-2 run and closed out the game 30 - 27. In the fourth and fifth games, it came down to the wire and again the Lady Lions lost both games by a score of 30-27. Senior middle hitter Elaine Voltz tallied a team high 23 kills in the 1-3 loss, while freshman setter Brooke Gallentine recorded 41 assists. Sophomore Brittany Hennessy and senior Lisa Wagner had 28 and 27 digs respective ly- Head coach Phil Pisano is still scratching his head over the loss. “I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the loss these past few days,” he said, “and there Lions headed to NCAA’s By Heather Heenan staff w riter By Matt Waronker staff writer The lady lions huddle up after a 3-1 loss to Penn State Altoona squad, the ladies head to EC AC competition this weekend to continue their postseason. ir its NCAA Regional match against Messia The Lady Lions then headed to Frostburg for the AMCC Championship game against the number one AMCC seed Frostburg State. Putnam once again showed her skills, putting Behrend up one nothing in the 17th minute of play. Putnam teamed up with freshman forward Cassie Berlin in the 30th minute to take a commanding 2-0 lead. Behrend went on to win 2-1 and captured the championship title. “The girls’ per formance was great as a team and they executed plays in the game as the best team in the conference,” said O’Driscoll. O’Driscoll is in his third year coaching at Behrend and has led the Lions to the AMCC Championship game each year. The past two years the team lost close games to Frostburg State. Two years ago it came down to the last few minutes and last year it was lost in penalty kicks. “The girls were delight ed with the win. It is a good feeling no one is used to. Behrend deserved it and everyone believed that we could achieve it,” said O’Driscoll. The next stop for the Lady Lions is the NCAA regional tournament where they will compete against Messiah College this Friday. Messiah is the defending NCAA champion. O’Driscoll says that he hopes to win and he knows his team has the talent. “Behrend will play hard and play with passion on Friday. They deserve to win and it is good for the profile of the college and of the team,” he said. If the Lady Lions win they will move on and play Saturday in the regional Championship game. Ithaca will be providing live stats for all three games in the regional play at http://bombers.ithaca.edu/live/wsoccer/xlive.htm is really no reason why we had a bad performance. It was just a situation where we picked the worst possible moment to have a bad day. I give credit to Altoona, but when it comes down to it, we could have handled the pres sure much better than we did.” Despite being eliminated from the NCAA tournament picture, Behrend will still continue in the postseason. The Lions were invited to the 2006 ECAC Southern Volleyball Championship where they have been seeded number two overall. Although the ECAC’s don’t compare to the NCAA tour nament, Pisano says it gives them a chance at redemption. “Getting over the loss has taken a lot of work,” he said. “It was hard because we expected to reach the NCAA tourna ment, but now we know we have to treat our ECAC bid as a second chance and as a way to finish our season the right way.” Pisano says that the team needs to stay focused and loose to be successful in the tournament. “The ECAC is really strong this year,” noted Pisano. “Out of the eight teams, six could possibly win, and I feel we’re definitely one of the strong contenders. Ultimately, for us we need to relax and enjoy this opportunity for a postseason.” Behrend will face seventh seed Lebanon Valley College in quarterfinal play this Friday at 6 p.m. Both the tourna ment’s semifinals and final match will be played on Saturday. The tournament will be hosted by the New Jersr C‘ Universi' The Behrend Beacon I Friday, November 10, 2006 CONTRIBUTE!* PHOTO
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