November 2007 Page 11 The Lion’s Eye Chen Ranked Top Women’s Tennis Player in the PSUAC ~ DelCo Baseball Team By Rob Forbes and - 1 ranked Women’s Tennis player in the Arsene Decarde, a freshman psychology Comes Out Victor Adu-Boahene PSUAC. major, felt that the team really built a : g raf5014@psu.edu “Our season was amazing and I'm so sad sense of family as the season went on. Shining Bright voal00@psu.edu it’s over too soon,” says Chen, a sopho- “The best part of our season was the Lion's Eye Staff Writers more with a double major in Finance and = away matches. We had so much fun in By Rob Forbes the field, the fresh- : IST about this year’s tennis season. the bus rides away and we all bonded raf5014@psu.edu men also posses a The Penn State Tennis Championships This year’s season went very well, with so much. We can all hang out and get Lion's Eye Staff great deal of maturity were held Oct. 19-21 at University Park the team giving their best and finishing along pretty well. I can’t believe the Writer and patience.. Coach and the DelCo Tennis team continued its very successful regular season, and finished fourth in the overall tennis rank- ings. The highlight of Championship Week- end came courtesy of sophomore Jade Chen. In singles play, I Jade finished with the § best overall record at 9-1, earning a first round bye in tournament play. After winning her second round match in two sets, 6-4 6-2, Jade took on Abington senior Jackie Wise. Although down 5-1 in her first set, Jade rallied to win the set 7-5, and took the second set 6-3, winning the Wom- en’s Tennis Championship. Penn State Delaware County 2007 Te with a 6-6 record under the direction of Mrs. Becca Bergwall. Other players on the team really felt the team become cohesive throughout the entire season. B nnis Team season is over,” he says with a smile. The success of this year’s PSU Delco’s tennis team can’t be mentioned without giving kudos to Coach Bergwall. “She is an amazing woman,” Jade says. “She was so good to all of us and she =malways had a positive attitude and fg motivated us to do the best we # could. There is no doubt that she as a vital element to the success Band amazing experience we shared Bthis season.” BBergwall’s team philosophy was to have fun and for the team to do their best to win games. Bergwell hopes hat the success of this season will Rprompt both freshmen and current | ‘students who have talent in the “sport of tennis to help her beef up the team and aim for the top spot next After starting the sea- son with a disappoint- ing 1-5 record, the Penn State Delaware County Baseball team rebounded to win five of their last six to claim a 6-6 finish. While the team’s early struggles were due to inexperience as well as bad breaks, Head Coach Jeff Vickers credits the team’s rebound to their character and tenacity. ‘The quality of play was never in doubt, Vickers feels that this group is probably the most talented class he’s ever seen at Penn State Delaware County. Although Coach is pleased with the progression of young players, he can’t help but feel disappointed for his seniors. The group of Nap, Brady, Mecca, Watkinson; and Ostein have played the last three years and been on PSUAC Southern Di- vision championship teams each of those Jade finished the season as the number season. but bad breaks had years. A .500 season gotten the best of the ~~ was not exactly what DelCo Soccer Team Makes Bid For PSUAC Championship in I ih Geni Bey had in mind for . 4 ho tin but © the, ; : By: Victor Adu-Boahene ing yet another ball off the crossbar; our to toughen the team’s defense and to bet- 5 Lk : > 5 Ed > ey voal 00@psu.edu home team out shot Hazleton in the last ter the team’s attacking offense. 6th doubleheader Vickers fools that Lions Eye Staff Writer 15 minutes of the game. The game and against Abington, the this season has made The PSU DelCo soccer team lost a hard our season ended with a 2-0 defeat. Coach Jim Gastner was very pleased The coach, once a right-winger for Lafayette University, an NCAA division soccer school, and a retired army officer, team responded by sweeping their rival the seniors hungrier than ever. There is fought playoff match to PSU Hazleton on = with his team’s efforts this year. “I have combined his experience from his play- fn lid Pea Vine Sunday in the first playoff appearance by to tell you that I have never been prouder ing days to his time in the army to instill team’s convincing tanto hand thent ihe the team in five years. DelCo started the of a group of young men and women,” in his boys - a feeling of pride, respect, sweep of rival Abing- PSUAC champion- - game at a disadvantage missing leading says Gastner of his group of athletes. success and sports discipline. He had ton as the spark that ship trophy for the goal scorer Victor Adu-Baohene (injured) and third year starting defender Ejaj Ud- din. During warm-ups, the leading assist man on the team, Matt Schneck, turned his ankle and although he tried twice to play, he was unable to compete. In the first few minutes of the game a miscom- munication between our starting mid- fielders led to a collision that sidelined starter Corey Gabrielli for the rest of the : : : a way the freshman with the team spirit i contest. It was an inauspicious start to this year. But the team has a solid belief four to six. This gives the first top two pn iH Sh : : va : ry ; especially handled the and enthusiasm of the biggest game of the year. Yet some- in their ability as a unit, and with diligent teams from either the Eastern or the : : ; : ee, team’s early strug- the freshman has how, against the odds, the team stepped practice, they bounced back this season Western division Conference to have a . ; , a : Sg ao gles. Leadership was Coaches Vickers and up and played the first 45 minutes of the to win six straight games before suc- bye’ from the preliminary rounds of the pn : also a factor. Coach Bez very optimistic. game to a draw. cumbing to the underdogs, PSU-Greater ~~ play-offs. The subsequent four teams : ; ane Vickers attributes the = They feel the sky is Alleghany, 1-0 in a second overtime. would have to play an elimination match. ’ oo team’s success to the the limit for this team oe The second half started poorly with Hazleton getting a quick goal. DelCo kept up the fight. Unfortunately the team bounced a ball off the crossbar and missed several promising scoring op- portunities. : The battle see-sawed back and forth. Hazleton made a great run down the wing and took a fabulous shot that found the corner of the net. DelCo continued to pressure the Hazleton defense bounc- PSU Brandywine finished their season 11-5 in league play. The team was the third seed in the playoffs. Even the most die-hard fan who vis- ited their summer camp this year and witnessed their pre-season games would have more than likely written the PSU- Delco soccer team off the play-off list The Lions lost a close game with PSU York and entered the playoffs as the 3rd overall seed with an 11-4 record. Coach Gastner has been a tremendous factor in the success story of the soccer team so far. He worked hard to grind the skills of some of the freshmen players that joined his team, and for the already skilled members of the team, he made sure he provided the necessary tools to sharpen their skills. Gastner worked hard also an environment free from criticism but rather encouragement and support. The soccer lads love to play together and play as a team. This year, the Penn State University Athletic Committee (PSUAC), which oversees all inter-collegiate athletics within the Penn state school system, increased the soccer play-off spots from The winners from the elimination match would advance to play the semis against the top two teams that drew a bye from earlier on. The final standing winners would vie forthe Championship trophy on Jeffries Field at Main Campus on Sunday, November 11. The latter losers would battle for the third and fourth places respectively. This article also contains information supplied by Coach Jim Gast- ner of the PSU Delco Athletics Department. turned it around. The team went on to finish with a .500 record. On a team with 11 freshman and only five seniors, Coach Jeff Vickers was impressed with the leadership of Seniors Chris Napoli, Jon ‘Brady, Chris Mecca- riello, Jim Watkinson, and Tom Ostein. Coach Vickers spoke of the tremendous contributions from the team’s 11 fresh- men. In addition to their great talent on spring season. Coach Vickers expects the team’s momentum to carry into the spring sea- son. The leadership and character of the seniors combined and cannot wait for the spring of ’08.
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