PORTERSVILLE — If winning is a habit, the Portersville Christian School girls volleyball team is hooked.

The Warriors recently ended their season at 19-4 by winning the Association of Christian Schools International Northeast Regional Tournament in West Sumsbury, Conn.

Portersville Christian competes in the Southwestern Christian Athletic Conference and has lost only one league match in the past five years.

"We don't make any roster cuts," said eighth-year coach Donetta DuPont about her 16-player squad. "Anybody who wants to play is welcome to play.

"We have a junior high team, so by the time the girls reach high school age, they know whether it's for them or not."

Portersville Christian doesn't have a large base from which to attract high school-age players. The entire school has only 250 students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

The Warriors won the Ohio Valley Region two years ago and applied for inclusion in this year's Northeast event.

"Our region didn't have a tournament this year, and we wanted to play in a regional for our seniors," DuPont said.

Because of its record, Portersville Christian received a bye to the finals and defeated teams from Connecticut and Long Island, N.Y., on its way to the championship.

Val Hamilton was named tournament MVP. Fellow senior Hannah Gardner and junior Meagan DeVries joined her on the all-tournament team.

Hamilton's sport of choice is basketball. She averaged 11 points per game her junior year and plans to play for either Taylor (Ind.)College or Malone (Ohio)College next season.

Gardner, a four-year starter at setter for Portersville, plans to follow in her sister's footsteps and play volleyball at Houghton (N.Y.)College. Elizabeth Gardner is a senior on Houghton's squad.

"I've been playing volleyball since sixth grade,"Hamilton said. "We have excellent coaches and we play together well. We've been playing together for a long time.

"If we didn't have Hannah as our setter all this time ... there's no way we'd have all these wins."

Hamilton and DeVries are middle hitters. Hamilton stands 5-feet-10 and "is one of the best athletes on the team," DuPont said. "She blocks and pounds the ball very well."

DeVries is a transfer from Michigan and is in her first year with the Warriors. Besides Hamilton and Gardner, other seniors on the squad include outside hitters Marissa Wehr, Annie Bartman and Amy Thompson, and weak-side hitters Jordan Hogan and Aimee Rue.

"This is the first time we've had seven seniors on this team,"Gardner said. "Usually, we lose one or two a year. They will have a challenge building this back up next year.

"We had so many good hitters. I could set the ball to pretty much anybody."

Portersville Christian offers only three sports: soccer, volleyball and basketball.

"We're usually balanced in terms of our ages, but this year was the oldest team I've had,"DuPont said. "I didn't have any freshmen at all. Next year, we'll probably have to bump some younger kids up to varsity to fill out the roster."

The winning will likely continue, regardless.

"Volleyball is a team sport and team play is stressed here — and it works,"Hamilton said.