Unfortunately for the PSAC West champion Golden Eagles, Cal, the fourth-place team out of the PSAC West, continued that trend sweeping Clarion out of the PSAC postseason with a 3-0 (25-19, 25-15, 27-25) win before a large, loud crowd of 563 at Clarion’s Tippin Gym.

“It stinks,” Mills said. “Cal is playing their best volleyball right now, and we didn’t make the right adjustments. They did a good job of managing the game, and we made too many errors.”

Clarion was never able to get into a rhythm of offense hitting a season-low .075 (33 kills, 24 errors, 120 attempts) against the PSAC’s stingiest defensive team.

“We knew coming in, Cal was the best blocking team in the conference, one of the best blocking teams in the country,” Mills said. “We talked about what we needed to do, and who not to challenge. And we kept challenging their middles.”

Mackenzie Biggs led Clarion with eight kills, while Gabrielle Olson, Catherine Ferragonio, Taylor Braunagel and Carlie Bieranowski each had six kills. Ferragonio added 11 digs, while Bieranowski had seven digs.

Laura Subject finished with 28 set assists and six digs for the Golden Eagles, and Morgan Seybold paced the defense with 18 digs.

Laurel Miller had a strong match for Cal with 14 kills while hitting .333 (14-3-33). She completed a double-double with 10 digs.

Ashley Leto added nine kills and 12 digs for the Vulcans, while Mary Lavery and Miranda Fouzie each added seven kills.

Megan Litobroski led Cal with 19 set assists, and Kristen Scurpa added 17. Samantha Rudy had 16 digs.

Things actually started out strong for Clarion with the Golden Eagles jumping out to an early 8-4 lead in the first set behind a pair of Taylor Braunagel kills.

But following a Vulcan timeout, Cal rolled off eight of the next 10 points to forge ahead 12-10 with Miller recording two kills during the stretch.

Clarion answered and tied the match at 12 and then again at 13 before Cal finished on a 12-6 roll to take the opening set and set the tone for the match.

The second set was tied at seven before Cal broke free with a 12-3 run that saw Miller and Fouzie each record a pair of kills. The run was aided by six Clarion attack errors that included just two Cal blocks.

Up 19-10, the Vulcans wasted little time making it a 2-0 lead.

The third set was the most competitive of the match, and Clarion, thanks to a late 4-1 run, held a pair of set points first at 24-22 and then at 24-23 only to watch the Vulcans knot the set at 24 on a Fouzie block of a Ferragonio attack.

Cal then jumped up 25-24 on a Miller kill before a Vulcan attack went long knotting things back up at 25.

But a block of Biggs by Miller and kill by Lavery gave Cal the set win and with it the match.

The Vulcans will now take on West Chester, the third-place team out of the PSAC East, in the semifinals Saturday at Seton Hill

Clarion, meanwhile, will wait to see if its gets a bid to the NCAA Division II Tournament. The Golden Eagles would appear to be in good shape for a fifth straight tournament bid having been ranked second in the Atlantic Region in last week’s poll with the top eight teams getting bids to the dance.

“We are going to take tomorrow off,” Mills said. “Then we are going to work hard. We need to get better. We had a great opportunity. But we don’t have it. Now we refocus.”

NOTES – With the 28 set assists, Subject became the third player in school history to record 4,000 in a career with 4,009 joining Jackie Hill (5,846) and Amanda Gough (4,198) in the 4,000-set assist club at Clarion … It was the third meeting of the year between the teams with Cal winning twice in Clarion by 3-0 scores and Clarion taking home a 3-2 win at California.