HAMBURG, N.Y. – The Hilbert College women's volleyball team swept Penn State Altoona tonight to earn their first ever Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference First Round play-off game. After the emotional win (25-23, 25-18, 33-31) the Hawks will now travel to Erie, PA and face the number one seeded Penn State Behrend in the semi-final game November 9.

Hilbert finished the match hitting the ball with accuracy all over the court. The Hawks earned 42 kills in 130 attempts (.215) while Altoona struggled at the net, ending with .032 attack percentage. Three players reached for double-digit kills, led by freshman Amanda Binder's 11. Jordan Botsford and Chelsea Reischuck added 10.

Shannon Memminger broke the 1,000 plateau with her 34 assists tonight. Congratulations!

Even with many free ball returns, both teams combined for 144 digs. Hilbert had five players account for double-digit digs led by Chelsea Reischuck's 17.

Altoona's Mariah McDowell led the visitor's with 11 kills while Emily Frye provided 17 digs.

In the opening set, Altoona jumped out to a 6-1 lead before Hilbert marched back to tie it up at 7-7. The Hawks built a 16-13 advantage, but watched it disappear and found themselves down 18-22. After Altoona suffered two back-to-back errors, Hilbert earned a kill and forced a timeout with the score 21-22. The Lions came out of the timeout and committed two more hitting errors, to give Hilbert a 23-22 lead. Hilbert missed a serve opportunity to knot it at 23-23, but the Hawks responded with kills by Reischuck and Binder to claim set one, 25-23.

As the second game progressed, Hilbert held a 7-1 then a 10-3 lead before Altoona closed the gap to 14-8. The Lions were tagged with hitting errors, ball handling errors and they couldn't return the Hawks powerful hits at the net. Hilbert cruised to a 25-18 set-two victory.

Set three was nothing short of a thrilling comeback. Hilbert built a slim 7-5 lead, forcing an Altoona timeout which served them well because the visitors rallied and took an 20-14 lead. The home team played aggressively and didn't look at the score board. Hilbert went on a hitting rampage and got right back into it forcing another Altoona timeout. "When forced into out of system plays, we stayed aggressive and consistent, putting pressure on Altoona with our attacks" said Amanda Logue.

The game became a nail bitter when Hilbert's Chelsea Reischuck scored a kill to make it 21-23. At that point Hilbert played to win. With too many exciting plays to describe, you have to watch the match on our archived streaming video (here). An Altoona hitting error gave Hilbert the 33-31 set and match victory.

In the other semi-final match played in North Buffalo tonight, Pitt-Bradford (#6) upset Medaille (#3) in four sets. The Mavericks claimed victory in set one before Bradford rallied for three straight.

The AMCC Final Four is compete with a Hilbert / Penn State Behrend match at 3pm(time change) November 9. The Franciscan / Bradford match will follow at 5:30pm (time change). The semi-final victors will play for the championship on Sunday, November 10 at 1pm. All matches will be streamed by Penn State Behrend and the link will be posted on our website soon.