PITTSBURGH— Kala Schnur refers to it as a "win-win"situation.

The 5-foot-4 Butler graduate recently won the American Mideast Conference's Northern Division Setter of the Year Award while manning that position for the Point Park University women's volleyball team.

And Point Park has been winning a lot of games as a result.

The Pioneers finished 26-15 this season, reaching the NAIAplayoffs for the second straight year. The program had never reached postseason play before that.

Now a junior, Schnur has been the setter for Point Park in all but one match over the past three years. She lettered two years in volleyball at Butler before that and served as the Golden Tornado's setter for every game.

"My sister, Halee, was setter at Butler the year before me,"Schnur said. "She moved on to Clarion."

But her younger sister didn't follow.

"I wanted to major in intelligence and national security,"Schnur said. "Point Park was the first college in the country to offer a major in that field.

"When I found out their situation in volleyball, it was a win-win situation for me."

Schnur was one of seven freshman starters at Point Park under then first-year coach Mike Bruno.

"We just came in, cleaned house and went to work on recruiting,"Bruno said. "I wanted to bring in a crop of girls who were going to be the cornerstones of a resurgence. Kala is the heart of all that.

"A setter in volleyball is like the quarterback. We run a lot of complicated stuff offensively and she enhances that. She's been into it since day one. She's our leader on the court."

She's a leader in the program's record book as well. Schnur had 1,721 assists in 140 games this season, averaging 12.3 per game to rank second in the AMC in that category.

Schnur already has more than 4,000 assists in her collegiate career — a school record. She owns the single-season mark as well.

"If I get a lot of assists, it means we're getting a lot of kills, scoring a lot of points — and winning a lot of games,"she said.

The AMC's North and South divisions will merge into one division next year. That hasn't changed the goals of the Point Park program.

"These girls want to win the conference and get to the national finals,"Bruno said. "They haven't made that a secret.

"Kala is in the top three in this league in assists. She's a tough, blue-collar kid. It's all effort with her."

Bruno hopes to recruit two more Butler County volleyball players, Zoe Hughes from Knoch and Brittney Turley from Freeport, in the Pioneers' quest for the AMCtitle next year.

In the meantime, Schnur continues to work toward her degree in intelligence and national security. She was an all-academic AMCperformer this year as well.

"I'm not sure what I want to do with it yet,"she said of her degree. "Become an FBIagent, an analyst — I'm not sure which way to go."

Halee Schnur is now an assistant volleyball coach at Karns City, where she teaches. Her sister can see herself coaching with her someday.

"It'd be fun. I'd love to stay in the game somehow,"Schnur said. "There aren't many opportunities to play competitive volleyball beyond college."