This is not the week IPFW women’s volleyball coach Kelley Hartley Hutton figured she’d be talking about the NCAA tournament.
This week next year, perhaps. This week in a different year. But not this week.
“We had one of those years where we’d think we had a corner turned, and then we’d have a setback,” she said, a couple of days after her Mastodons beat Summit League juggernaut North Dakota State on its home floor to earn their first NCAA berth since going Division I in 2001.
“We never stopped believing,” Hartley Hutton went on. “But some years it’s easy to believe in it. Some days – some years – it’s easier to believe in it than others.”
Believe it. The Mastodons are going, with a team that battled injury, illness and youth all season before finding itself in the Summit League tournament.
“We were younger this year, with five freshmen,” Hartley Hutton said. “We had matches where people were throwing up with the flu. We had both of our setters banged up pretty good. And we had a senior (first-team All-Summit League middle hitter Rebekah Roehm) whose shoulder is about to fall off.
“But every team has injuries and deals with sickness.
“So we just battled those things.”
The battling left the Mastodons in the perfect mindset for the Summit League tournament, where they first knocked off an IUPUI squad that two weeks before had “cleaned our clocks,” according to Hartley Hutton, then beat North Dakota State in five sets in front of a raucous pro-Bison crowd in Fargo, N.D.
The final was 28-26, 25-19, 20-25, 20-25, 15-9.
“It was special,” says Hartley Hutton, whose team will find out Sunday whom it plays in the NCAA tournament. “I guess we had to get beat up a little bit and toughened up to really prepare for this. I love what our associate head coach Steve Florio said (before the fifth set against North Dakota State). He said ‘This is why you went through what you went through, to get ready for this moment. This is why.’ ”
Indiana Tech heads for nationals
Indiana Tech’s women’s volleyball team heads to Sioux City, Iowa, on Sunday to compete in the 2009 NAIA National Championships. The Warriors open pool play against No. 10 Biola (Calif.) University at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, then take on No. 3 Northwestern (Ia.) College on Wednesday and Shawnee State (Ohio) on Dec. 3.
This is the second consecutive season the Warriors have made the national championships. They lost in pool play last year.
Saint Francis, Taylor each place 11
Eleven Saint Francis Cougars and 11 Taylor Trojans are on the Mid-States Football Association Mideast League all-conference football team.
First-team selections for the Cougars include three-time picks Daniel Carter, Carl Thomas and Donavon Evans, plus center Brendan Carragher, defensive end Stephen Whited and offensive tackle Ryan Kauchak. Wide receiver Brian Schultz, offensive tackled Justin Vela and linebacker Troy Hudson were second team selections. Defensive end Travis Craven and linebacker Jarrell Hunter made honorable mention.
For Taylor, Pagel Williams made the first team as both a return specialist and defensive back and was joined on the first team by wide receiver Ryan Magnuson. Second-team picks included quarterback Shaun Addison, offensive lineman Ross Hayden and defensive back Brandon Mitchell.
Wide receiver Trenton Schmale, wide receiver Trevor Terrell, offensive lineman Marc Cattrell, defensive lineman Nahum Masimer, defensive lineman Nathan Boland and defensive back Marcellus Burton were honorable mention.
Athletes of note
Taylor cross country runners Jeff Hubley, Matt Bane, Isaac Bryan, Nathan Kirsch, Adam Schroer, Alyssa Johnson, Mandy Isaacson and Janet Redding have been named NAIA Scholar-Athlete Award recipients. … First-year IPFW softball coach Amy Tudor has named outfielder Stacey Swinford , catcher Kris Karpun and infielder Sara Hopwood as team captains. … IPFW tennis coach Eric Burns has signed East Noble standout Derek Romer to a national letter of intent … Carmel soccer star Katelyn Stout , a first-team All-State pick, has signed with Saint Francis.
