BC3 Captures 4th WPCC Volleyball Crown, Morella Selected All-Conference

On Saturday, October 20 local college BC3 swept CCBC eye regional title to gain their 4th WPCC volleyball crown in a row.

Emily Magusiak and Mackenzie Craig (Monaca, PA) had eight kills each and Emilee Beck 17 digs as the Butler County Community College volleyball team on Saturday won its fourth consecutive Western Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference championship and 10th under Rob Snyder by sweeping the Community College of Beaver County 25-4, 25-9 and 25-18 in the best-of-5 finals.

Craig added 23 assists and seven of 13 service aces for the Pioneers, who beat CCBC in the title match for the second year in a row and moved to 17-5. BC3 on Saturday will chase its third National Junior College Athletic Association Division III Region XX crown in four years in Arnold, Md.

“It’s fun to carry on the legacy and keep it rolling,” said Craig, of Karns City. “That is what it is. We have built this history of winning the conference and even the region. We are rolling and going and that is just what we need.”

Snyder, selected Saturday as the WPCC coach of the year for the ninth time, moved his career record through 20 seasons at BC3 to 373-126.

“The only way to sustain this is if one group takes on the pressure from the last group,” said Snyder, whose program has posted 10 consecutive winning seasons. “That is the goal. The freshmen learn the same thing and they bring it in the next year. It is important to them to win. It takes all year for them to realize what it’s about.

“When we start the season I talk about pride, and how every other team’s game is going to be their best game because they want to beat us.”

“Be one working machine”

The Pioneers, the No. 1 seed in the WPCC championships, rallied in the semifinals from a 14-10 deficit in the third game to sweep No. 4 seed University of Pittsburgh-Titusville 25-22, 25-13 and 25-15.

CCBC, the No. 2 seed, overcame a semifinals game deficit of 2-0 against No. 3 seed Community College of Allegheny County-Boyce to win 18-16 in the fifth game and advance to the finals against BC3.

“I think we were very tired because we played a match to five, which was kind of sad because we beat them before,” CCBC’s Haley Pelini said of CCAC-Boyce, which the Titans defeated 3-0 on Sept. 10 and on Oct. 3. “It is kind of upsetting, but we were very tired coming into the match.”

Which, Pelini said, did not help against a BC3 team that works “together very well. BC3 clicks. All their personalities, how they work together on the court, they just click well.”

The Pioneers capitalized on 33 unforced errors in sweeping CCBC.

Ron Voitus’ CCBC team fell to 11-17 after committing 14 passing errors on serve-receive, eight hitting errors, six missed serves and five digs errors against the Pioneers.

“It was hard because we just got done playing that five-game match and that made us tired,” Voitus said. “We beat ourselves making mistakes.”

Members of the Butler County Community College volleyball team are shown Saturday, Oct. 20, 2018, after winning the program’s fourth Western Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference championship in Monaca. Front row, from left, Makenzie McDowell, a Knoch High graduate; Emily Magusiak, New Castle; and Emilee Beck, Butler. Back row, from left, Abby Kopac, Knoch; Haley Caldwell, Butler; Madison Morella, Lincoln in Ellwood City; Mackenzie Craig, Karns City; Kaylee Ebbert, Mars; and Brooke Snow, Karns City.

BC3 raced to leads of 6-0 and 13-2 against CCBC and closed the first set with 11 consecutive points.

“What Rob has been telling us to do is to ‘Be in sync,’” Craig said. “‘Everyone move together. Everyone be one working machine.’ And today that is what we did.”

Added Magusiak, of New Castle: “We put in a lot of effort. Effort plays make a huge difference.”

“We are the best that we have been”

The Pioneers scored nine points in the row in the middle game and trailed only three times, and by no more than two points, in a third that ended with a kill by Craig, giving BC3 its 15th WPCC title since 1977.

“We always want to peak at the right point,” Craig said. “We don’t want to peak at the beginning. We don’t want to peak in the middle. It is the end when you should be getting to your best point. And I think that is what we have done.”

BC3 sophomores Magusiak, Craig, and Madison Morella, of Ellwood City, and freshman Makenzie McDowell were selected Saturday to the WPCC all-conference team.

“From the beginning of the season we have come a long way,” McDowell, a Knoch High graduate, said of the Pioneers, who began the year 0-2. “We just weren’t working together well at the beginning of the season. As of now we are the best that we have been. This is definitely the best game that I have seen us play. We flowed together.”

The Pioneers’ skills were sharp against CCBC, Snyder said.

“Everyone was making good decisions,” he said. “They were emotionally invested, which is where we want them to be.”

The Pioneers at noon on Saturday will face in a single-elimination match Anne Arundel Community College (6-11) in the NJCAA Division III Region XX championships. BC3 is 6-0 against Anne Arundel since 2016, including a sweep Sept. 8 and a 3-1 victory Sept. 22.

The winner will host the NJCAA Division III District G championship.

BC3 in 2017 fell 15-13 in the fifth and deciding set of the finals of the NJCAA Division III Region XX championships to Howard Community College, of Howard, Md.

Howard lost its next match, in the District G tournament, to Columbus State, Ohio, which finished fourth in the NCJAA Division III national championship in November in Rochester, Minn. Eastfield College, Mesquite, Texas, is the defending national champion.

Morella agrees with Craig that the Pioneers are gelling at the most important part of the season.

“We worked all year and it was hard for us to get it together,” she said. “But we finally got it together. Every player on the team is doing everything they possibly can to help one another out.”

Other members of the Pioneers squad are Haley Caldwell, of Butler; Kaylee Ebbert, of Mars; Brooke Snow, of Karns City; and Abby Kopac, of Knoch. Beck is from Butler.