Emily Smith and Laura Wachowicz were teammates with the strong Exeter Township girls’ volleyball team and now they are teammates on the Alvernia University women’s volleyball team.

And, their play is so similar that often-times people think they’re sisters according to coach Kelly Nicodemus. Both stand 5-feet-8 and both are in the school’s demanding nursing program as well.

“They are the quintessential one-two punch in every sense of the phrase,” the coach said. “They have grown by miles as players and young women since they joined the squad last year and, as a coach, I have to constantly remind myself that they are still only in their sophomore year and that the best is yet to come.”

Smith has 138 kills, 134 digs, 16 service aces, nine blocks and five assists. She’s scored 159.5 points as of Sept. 30. Wachowicz has 96 kills, 123 digs, 43 assists, 31 blocks and 10 service aces for the young Crusaders who were 5-8 overall and 1-3 MAC Commonwealth play after a 3-0 non-league loss to Susquehanna on Sept. 29. There are no seniors on the squad.

Both players go through the entire rotation as both defensive and offensive cornerstones. They only played front or back as freshmen.

“We’ve worked with both of them to become as comfortable swinging in the back row as they are in the front row to add another offensive dimension to their games,” Nicodemus said.

Nolan Perugini (Exeter Township) >> The Mary Washington junior was named Capital Athletic Conference Player of the Week in men’s tennis (Sept. 27) after he started the fall season 6-1 in singles and 5-1 in doubles primarily against Division I competition. At the Navy Invitational, he won four singles matches before dropping a 6-2, 6-3 decision in the E Flight final to Bucknell’s Max Kane. He and teammate Derek Hagino took the C Flight doubles title, beating a Bucknell team in the semifinals and a Temple duo in the finals.

Ali Snyder (Exeter Township) >> The freshman began her collegiate career playing with the La Salle women’s tennis team by defeating Julia Gan of Haverford 6-1, 6-1 in the Swarthmore Invitational on Sept. 12. She lost in the second round. In doubles, Snyder and fellow freshman Tiffany Theopil scored an 8-1 victory over a Haverford duo but dropped an 8-3 decision to a team from Swarthmore.

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