In the press conference following her team's loss to Penn State in the 2008 NCAA Division I volleyball tournament, Yale coach Erin Appleman said she was hoping the Lady Lions would win it all so she could say the Bulldogs lost to the champs.

Well, Penn State did their part, outlasting Stanford in an entertaining three-set match to win its second straight national title and extend their NCAA record winning streak to 64 matches. How dominant were the Lady Lions? Well, they lost two sets the entire season and those came against Nebraska in the semifinals.

An interesting piece of trivia is that Penn State's last loss came on Yale's home court against Stanford in the 2007 season.

Martin Parker is no stranger to titles, playing a key role on Hyde's Class S championship teams in 2004 and 2005. The redshirt sophomore defensive tackle at Richmond added another crown to his collection.

Parker had three tackles including one which he recorded a sack and forced a fumble in the first half of the Spiders' 24-7 win over Montana Friday night.

Parker finished with 56 tackles including eight tackles for losses and four sacks for 13-3 Richmond.

The honors keep rolling in for Seymour's Alyssa Naeher.
Two days after the Penn State junior was named the goalkeeper on the National Soccer Coaches Association of American Division I All-American team, Naeher was named the outstanding goalkeeper in the FIFA Under-20 World Cup.
Naeher allowed just one goal in five matches to lead the U.S. to the gold medal.
In Sunday's final in Santiago, Chile, Korea outshot the U.S. 15-9 but only managed a goal in injury time by Cha Hu Nam.
Sydney Leroux and Alex Morgan had first-half goals for the U.S. in the championship match.
Naeher had a 1.11 goals against average and six shutouts in 19 games this season at Penn State.
Naeher, who had eight shutouts for the U-20 national team in 2008, is one of three members of the team in the running for U.S. Soccer Young Female Athlete of the Year award. Fan voting on the www.ussoccer.org site ends Monday.

Ohio dominated on the stat sheet but it is the Yale volleyball team which advanced to face defending national champion Penn State on the Nittany Lions home court on Saturday with a rousing 3-2 win in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Ellen Herman was easily the best player on the floor but had some costly hitting errors in the third and fifth sets as Yale emerged with a 25-19, 23-25, 25-23, 17-25, 15-13 victory.

Herman had 32 kills and a hitting percentage of .312, both truly remarkable numbers. The Bobcats went to Herman early and often as she had 46 percent of Ohio's hitting opportunities. As a point of reference, Yale went to Cat Dailey 36 percent of the time.

Herman had 32 kills and 13 digs for Ohio, which had more kills, assists, digs and blocks but the number which really stood out was Ohio's 20 service errors. The serving, hitting and setting errors as well as one illegal substitution call by the mistake-prone accounted for 12 of Yale's 25 points in the pivotal third set.

Dailey led Yale with 20 kills but it was Alexis Crusey who had the most timely kills. On match point, Crusey's perfectly-placed shot fell between three Ohio players.

"I couldn't be prouder of my team. I thought we really played well as a team, I thought we outplayed a really good team defensively," Yale coach Erin Appleman said. "The outhit, outblocked us, outdug us but we were able to gut it out. That is what this team has done all year is find a way."

Their reward is facing a squad being touted as perhaps the best in women's college volleyball history on its home court. Yale played at Penn State on Sept. 19 and suffered its first loss of the season 25-7, 25-13, 25-16.

After Chris Roberts, a redshirt junior paced the Southern Connecticut State football team to the NCAA Division II playoffs you have to wonder where the New Britain native will wind up next year.
Starting quarterback Steve Armstrong, who broke his leg in the second game of the season, could seek a medical redshirt and come back next year.
That, however, would be his sixth year at the school as Armstrong redshirted as a freshman with the Owls.
"He's making up his mind right now," SCSU coach Rich Cavanaugh said. "He's talking to his parents about it and we'll know by mid-December."
Armstrong would most likely step right back in as the starting quarterback if he decides to return. And with the graduation of Southern's top receivers in Chris Bergeski, Johnny Lee and Ty Marshall, Roberts could certainly take his old spot at receiver.
Kevin Lynch is the wild card in the mix. Lynch broke his leg in the third game of the season and has shown plenty of promise at quarterback. He may get the call whether Armstrong returns or not.
Regardless of who plays the spot next year, expect Southern to once again be a powerful offensive team.
We'll keep you posted.

A pair of former New Haven high school football standouts were named to the Colonial Athletic Association third team.

Lionel Nixon Jr., who played scholastically at Hyde, is a senior cornerback at Maine who has 71 tackles, two sacks and two interceptions. Former Hillhouse star D.J. McAulay, a junior receiver at William & Mary, had 40 catches for 718 yards and eight touchdowns.

Nixon's Black Bears are one of five CAA teams to receive bids into the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. Maine will face Northern Illinois Saturday at 5 p.m. Top-seeded James Madison and unseeded New Hampshire, Richmond and Villanova will also play on Saturday.

Among the key players for Richmond is former Hyde defensive tackle Martin Parker, who had 42 tackles and three sacks this season.

The Southern Connecticut State University athletic department has teamed up with Sporting News Connecticut to assemble a strong slate of live Owls men's and women's basketball action once again this winter.
The Internet radio website will air 10 regular season games with veteran broadcaster Don Boyle returning in a play-by-play capacity. Fans can catch all of the action beginning one-half hour prior to the opening tip-off with a complete pre-game show, including interviews with coaches and players.
A post-game show will follow at the conclusion of the contest.
In addition, all games will be rebroadcast on the www.sportingnewsct.com .

Here's the schedule
Nov. 29 Women's Basketball C.W. Post 3 p.m.
Dec. 11 Men's Basketball at New Haven 7 p.m.
Jan. 6 Women's Basketball American International 5:30 p.m.
Jan. 6 Men's Basketball American International 7:30 p.m.
Jan. 14 Women's Basketball at UMass-Lowell 5:30 p.m.
Jan. 14 Men's Basketball at UMass-Lowell 7:30 p.m.
Feb. 14 Women's Basketball Stonehill 1:30 p.m.
Feb. 14 Men's Basketball Stonehill 3:30 p.m.
Feb. 24 Women's Basketball LeMoyne 5:30 p.m.
Feb. 24 Men's Basketball LeMoyne 7:30 p.m.

So is Connecticut becoming the women's soccer goalkeeper pipeline or what?

Seymour's Alyssa Naeher was named as the starting goalkeeper on the www.topdrawersoccer.com collegiate All-American first team while Durham's Jillian Mastroianni was the keeper on the website's All-Freshman first team squad.

Naeher, a junior who played scholastically at Christian Heritage in Trumbull, has six shutouts and a goals against average of 1.11 for Penn State.

Mastrioanni, who starred at Choate before heading to Boston College, started 17 of 18 games and had seven shutouts and an 0.85 goals against average to earn second team All-Atlantic Coast Conference honors.

New Haven's Garrett Brown, a former Fairfield Prep star, had a career-high two sacks and recovered a fumble in Minnesota's 17-6 win over Purdue on Saturday. Brown and the Minnesota defense held Purdue to 226 yards of offense as the Gophers registered their first win at Purdue since 1990.

Brown, a junior defensive tackle, has started all eight games. He has 16 tackles including 4 1/2 tackles for losses and 2 1/2 sacks. Brown, who earned Academic All Big-10 honors as a sophomore, has 46 tackles in 29 career games including 15 starts at Minnesota.

Former West Haven High star Rob Jackson recorded his first career NFL tackle, hauling down Dallas Cowboys' tight end Jason Witten after an 8-yard gain with 1:50 left in the third quarter.

Jackson, a rookie defensive end who was a seventh-round pick of the Washington Redskins out of Kansas State in April's NFL draft, helped the Redskins upset Dallas 26-24.