Starting Dec. 20 through Dec. 29, we are reliving the top games, championships, awards, firsts, and memories from the year that was in the Ten For 2010 series. You the fans can vote on your top story of the year starting Dec. 29, and the results will be unveiled on New Year's Day. We present our top 10 in roughly chronological order, not in a ranking of any sort.
Ten For 2010
Dec. 20:
The Hall of Champions
Dec. 21:
Women's Basketball In The NCAA Tournament
Dec. 22: Lax Comes Back
Dec. 23:
Softball's NCAA Run
Dec. 24:
Field Hockey Is #1
Dec. 25:
LVC Cares
Dec. 26:
Football's Turnaround
Dec. 27:
"The Comeback"
On any other night, Lebanon Valley would have had already lost their Commonwealth Conference semifinal match to Messiah. Maybe it would have been after going down two sets to none. Maybe it was going down 20-19 in the third set, with Messiah five points away from upsetting the two-time defending CC champions. Maybe it was in the decisive fifth set when LVC trailed 10-4 in a race to 15.
Volleyball teams just don't come back from that.
Lebanon Valley did.
Coach Wayne Perry said after the match that he had never seen anything like it - and he's coached 755 matches over the past 24 years, so he's seen his share of incredible matches. But there his team was, down 10-4 in the fifth. He called timeout - LVC's last.
The team came out and drew a point off a blocking error, and
Emily Hopkins threw down two big kills to get it to 10-7. On their heels, Messiah called time, but it was useless. With a big Dutchmen crowd into it, a Messiah attack error and a
Jamie Hawk kill brough LVC within a point at 10-9. They were feeling it. It was a whole new match.
They went back and forth, but it looked like Messiah would take control on Ann Reck's kill to take a 13-12 lead. With no margin for error,
Joelle Snyder took over the match and hit three straight kills, using a thunderous swing at 14-13 to clinch the match and complete one of the most amazing comebacks in any sport at LVC.
The win only got LVC halfway there - they still had to go to Elizabethtown for the title match, a place they had gone to and lost 3-1 just 10 days earlier. A newly-confident Dutchmen squad flipped that around and won an emphatic 3-0 match, capturing their third consecutive CC title and heading off to the NCAA Tournament. They celebrated on the court with a big contingent of vocal LVC students who had made the trip and had adopted the team down the stretch run.
As a final act, they would go on to beat Ithaca for their first-ever NCAA win before being bounced by #3 Juniata, capping off one of the more memorable playoff runs in LVC history.
