DALLAS — Rob Snyder didn't know what to expect when his Junior Olympic volleyball team arrived in this Texas metropolis.

But by the time it left, he was pleased with its performance.

Snyder was the head coach of the Pittsburgh 3-Rivers Volleyball Club's 18-North team that went a combined 6-3 and placed fifth out of 48 teams at the Junior Olympics Championships June 26 to 28.

The squad was made up of players from Butler, Seneca Valley, North Allegheny, Fox Chapel and Clarion high schools.

"The girls played as well as they possibly could," said Snyder. "They peaked at the right time."

"We were so excited to be playing at a national event," said Becky Smith, who will be a senior middle hitter for Butler in the fall but played as a right-side hitter for 3-Rivers. "We wanted to leave everything out there because we knew it was a chance of a lifetime."

The team members responded to an invitation-only practice two weeks after the high school season ended in November.

The team's first tournament was in February.

"I thought we got better every tournament," said Smith. "We came from different high schools and we jelled well."

The team's schedule included tournaments in Ohio and Maryland, but it was a second-place finish at the Keystone Region Bid Tournament in April that earned it the trip to Dallas.

Before the national event, the squad met for practices three days every week at either Seneca Valley High or Butler County Community College, where Snyder is athletic director.

Some players kept their positions from high school. Others, like Smith, made a switch.

"We had a lot of size on the team, a lot of middle hitters, and some of them ended up playing on the outside for us," said Snyder.

"I moved to the right side because if the setter takes the serve, the right side has to set up the (third) hit," said Smith. "And (Snyder) liked the way I played over there."

Slippery Rock University graduate Louise Schultz, who was a middle hitter for The Rock, was an assistant for 3-Rivers.

"She helped out with a lot of the defensive work," said Snyder. "We try to do as much individual work as possible ... taking one or two players off to the side and work with them while the other coach works with the rest of the team."

Snyder's team opened national event by going 4-1 in pool play, including best-of-three set victories over teams from Texas and Minnesota.

"Going in, I had no idea what it would be like," said Snyder. "This was as far as we had ever gone."

Despite their unfamiliar surroundings, the players stayed positive.

"I kept thinking that every prior tournament we had been in, we were one of the best teams in the gym," said Maggie Gillooly, a senior libero at SV who also played for 3-Rivers last summer.

Gillooly and Smith, who hope to play for Snyder again next year, said they'll always have a unique experience to look back on.

"Every team we played was from a different part of the country, and they were all so competitive," said Gillooly.

Other players for 3-Rivers included SV's Lauren Balmert, Justine Carrow and Meghan Franz; Butler's Stephanie Mock; North Allegheny's Maria Nolan; Fox Chapel's Ellie Lininger and Clarion's Erin Bean.