McKeesport, PA. – The Penn State Greater Allegheny Athletic Department released its weekly award winners on Tuesday for the male and female athletes of the week. PSUGA Golf’s Sean Murphy (Churchill, PA./Woodland Hills HS) and Volleyball’s Andrea Ghiloni (Granville, OH./Granville HS) took home the awards after each showed big improvement and were leaders for their teams.
After struggling at the PSU-DuBois invitational last week, Murphy had a bounce-back effort as the team competed at the PSU-Fayette Invitational on Saturday. Murphy was able to lower his strokes by 10 finishing with a 90 on the course and finished 19th overall in the field of 40. The outing also helped him lower his season average to 90.7 keeping him on pace to qualify for the Penn State University Athletic Conference/United States Collegiate Athletic Association National Championships.
Murphy is one of three PSUGA golfers on pace to qualify for the event with an average of 90.7 in his three matches this season. Murphy owns the third-lowest average on the team sitting behind teammates Justin Wortman and Bert Hinton as PSUGA tries to compete at the event for the first time since the 2011 season.
For Ghiloni, she made a difference all over the court for the PSUGA Volleyball team helping to lead them to a 2-2 record this week, 1-1 in PSUAC play. Ghiloni was all over the court leading the team with 86 assists and adding 37 digs, finishing second on the team this week. She also continued her strong performance in the server’s box collecting a team-high four service aces in the four matches.
Ghiloni’s big game came in the second game of a tri-match against Christendom College on Saturday. She collected a season-high 40 assists while picking up 10 digs and three of her four service aces in the 3-1 win. She leads the team this season with 14 service aces and 160 assists in her eight games played.
Both PSUGA Golf and Volleyball are heading into the hearts of their seasons as they chase a spot in the PSUAC Playoffs. For Golf, it would be the first trip since the 2011 season and for Volleyball it would be their first berth since 2014. Both have a long way to go, but plenty of talent to be able to achieve their goals.
The PSUGA Golf team is in action Tuesday at the PSU-New Kensington Invitational while the PSUGA Volleyball team returns to action on Wednesday at 7 p.m. when they head to PSU-DuBois for conference play.