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Erin Wahler makes<br>Penn's JV volleyball team

PHILADELPHIA — Coming from a small school of about 100 students, Erin Wahler had the odds against her when it came to the idea of being involved in the University of Pennsylvania’s intercollegiate volleyball program.

Erin Wahler is an outside hitter for the University of Pennsylvania's junior varsity volleyball team.

But the 5-foot-10 outside hitter from Grand Canyon was in the right place at the right time and coaches must believe she has the right stuff. Penn started a junior varsity program this year to open up spots for young players.

"This is the first year they’ve had a JV here at Penn ... the point of it is to bring in more people to move them up to varsity within a year or two," Wahler said via telephone interview from Philadelphia. "I wanted to try out, they were looking for a couple of walk-ons. I had been talking to the coaches and they gave me a pretty good idea that they wanted me on the team. I was surprised because I didn’t play club volleyball and almost everyone else did."

Wahler led the Lady Phantoms to one of their better records in the past few years. But with the Quakers, she’s green to the sport.

"This year, it’s almost like I’ve re-learned to play," Wahler said. "I wish I would’ve known this stuff in high school."

The two most difficult things for the young player to get used to involves different rules and a different pace.

"You can serve off the net, that’s hard to get used to," Wahler said, adding that she likes high-school rules better. "The other thing that makes it fast paced is that it’s rally scoring all the time. It’s much different from what I’m used to ... everything’s much faster, it’s a lot to take in all at once."

Wahler hasn’t seen much playing time yet this season. But that’s because she is one of two walk-ons with the JV team and they didn’t arrive until classes began. The other players arrived early for preseason workouts.

With Wahler attending an Ivy League school with an obvious commitment to academics, it may seem difficult to fit in volleyball. But the freshman appears to be handling everything just fine. Practices run for three hours daily.

"It is difficult with the time commitment of volleyball," she said. "It’s the same time commitment as with the varsity, we just play different teams. It’s hard to organize my time, but everything is going well."

The JV team’s schedule only includes about nine matches. There are a few dates with other Ivy League schools and there are smaller-division opponents from Pennsylvania on the schedule.

Wahler, who is undecided between linguistics or anthropology as her major, said she would like to continue her volleyball career over the next four years. She’s impressed with Penn’s program.

"This is a really great team. It’s very possible that Penn will win the Ivy League this year," she said. "They beat Princeton (in the opener) and that was a big game."


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