Things are going pretty well for Brooke Gallentine. Her college volleyball team is the top seed in a championship tournament, and the junior setter was recently named the women's volleyball player of the week in the conference.
Gallentine, a Southmoreland graduate who is now a setter for Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, was named the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference and Eastern College Athletic Conference Southern Region volleyball player of the week for the week of Oct. 27.
She recorded 42 assists, 14 digs and four kills in Penn State-Behrend's 3-1 win over Pitt-Bradford on Oct. 29. She then racked up 35 assists and 10 digs, as Behrend defeated Penn State-Altoona, 3-0, on Nov. 1. She averaged 11 assists and 3.43 digs per game that week.
"I was pretty surprised. I wasn't expecting it," Gallentine said.
Gallentine said the honor brought congratulations from her coaches, but around campus, it didn't gain as much notoriety as an earlier player of the week selection. In September, Gallentine was named the college's player of the week, thanks in part to her 45 assists in a 3-2 win over St. Mary's.
"A lot of people mentioned it in September," she said.
Gallentine is a three-year starter at Penn State-Behrend and has been a setter since her days at Southmoreland, when she also played for the Penn Highlands Volleyball Club. She is a two-time all-conference selection and was Rookie of the Year in her freshman year. She said she still plays pick-up volleyball games in the summer.
Gallentine and her teammates are in action this weekend at the AMCC Championship Tournament, which top-seeded Behrend earned the right to host by winning the regular season with a 9-0 conference record and a 22-8 mark overall. Penn State-Behrend opened the AMCC Tournament last night, beating Pitt-Bradford, 3-0. Gallentine had 42 assists in the match. The team will play either Frostburg State or Pitt-Greensburg in the finals at 1 p.m. today.
"We're very excited," Gallentine said. "We want to win, of course. But we've never been to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. So our goal, if we win this, is to win the first round of the NCAA Tournament and make it to the second round."
As for Behrend's chances, Gallentine said the team shapes its own destiny.
"The only people who will make us lose is ourselves," she said.
Regardless of the AMCC Tournament's outcome, Gallentine said she looks forward to "just being a leader and somebody to look up to" as a senior. And the elementary education major said she hopes to keep volleyball in her life even after college.
"I would love to coach," she said.
