Charlene Horwatt remembers the first time she experienced the Midwestern Athletic Conference girls' volleyball tournament.

"I was playing at Hopewell High School at the time," said Horwatt, a 1986 graduate. "The tournament was held in October at the time. Since then, it's been moved closer and closer to the start of the season."

The 34th annual MAC tournament will be tomorrow with a field that is so big that a second site was secured.

"We have 28 teams for the first time," said Horwatt, now the coach at Beaver. "It's great to have so many teams, but I wish it could be held later in the season. It's unfair to have it this early. The season began only a week ago."

Ambridge High School is playing host to the one-day tournament, but one of the six preliminary pools will be at Quaker Valley High School.

"The top two teams from each pool advance to the gold bracket playoff round, while the third-place teams move on to the silver bracket playoff," said Glenn Freed, coordinator of officials for the tournament.

Four of the six pools have five teams, while the other two have four teams. Teams competing in the five-team pools will face each of the other teams twice in their pool. The pools with four teams will play three games against each team in their pool. Moon is the defending champion, while Hopewell is the returning runner-up.

"I don't like having a tournament that means as much as the MAC tournament this early in the season," Horwatt said. "Especially with such a young team. I would rather have more time to prepare for the MAC. I plan to bring this up at our coaches meeting. Hopefully, we can get it changed for next season."

Horwatt returned to coaching last season after a four-year break. The Bobcats placed second in Section 1-AA last season, but lost in the first round of the WPIAL Class AA playoffs to South Fayette.

Beaver began its season Saturday with a 10-team tournament. The host Bobcats finished second after losing, 2-1, in the best-of-three final to Canon-McMillan.

Beaver is again competing in Section 1-AA, but the alignment has changed. New Brighton and Center have moved to other Class AA sections and have been replaced by two new teams, Ellwood City and Lincoln Park.