It isn’t just one matchup often that determines the outcome of a season, but it can certainly be heartbreaking when that is the case and a team ends up on the wrong side of the decision. The volleyball team has a lost tiebreaker against the University of South Florida to blame for missing this year’s Big East tournament, despite having a winning season in Gilad Doron’s last year’s as head coach.

The ’07 edition of the Wildcats took a while to come together, dropping eight of their first nine games while competing in the Long Beach State Tournament, the Michigan State Tournament and the Kentucky Classic. Home cooking proved to be the remedy for the Wildcats, who returned home in grand fashion with a 3-0 mark in their own Villanova Tournament. The team won three 3-0 decisions over Holy Cross, Sacred Heart and UMBC. The winning ways of ‘Nova continued into the Big East portion of the team’s schedule. The ‘Cats used a stretch, highlighted by wins over conference foes West Virginia and Pittsburgh, where they won eight out of nine games to catapult themselves back to the .500 mark.

The Wildcats defended their home court incredibly well in 2007, going 10-2 in games played at Villanova. The match that would ultimately decide the ‘Cats postseason fate came on the road, however, in a 3-0 loss to USF that would give the Bulls the head-to-head tiebreaker they needed to win the last spot in the tournament, despite both teams finishing 7-7 in conference play.

Despite the losses of three key seniors, Jenna Link, Kacy Sellers and Adrian Semrau, the Wildcats hope the hiring of Josh Steinbach as head coach will prove to be the spark the team needs to reach postseason play next season.