By Kathryn Uggerholt, News Staff
New faces, new coaches and a set of 27 games are on the horizon for the Northeastern Women’s Volleyball team after finishing last season with an impressive 18-10 record.
It will be a very different team from last season, with the departure of seven senior players including Colonial Athletics Association (CAA) player of the year Britney Brown. This shake up in the roster is no worry for head coach Ken Nichols.
“It was an interesting dynamic last year with all those seniors. Many years when I would look on the court [I would] see three freshmen and three seniors, which is unique,” Nichols said. He said the team will miss the seniors, but has no doubt the newcomers and returning players will pursue excellence.
There will be three new incoming freshmen: setter/outside hitter Jillian Briner, libero/outside hitter Natalia Skiba and middle blocker Alexa Armstrong. Outside hitter Jasmine Marta also will join the team as a transfer student from Lee College.
“We have a young team next year; we only have two seniors out there,” Nichols said.The kids coming back have a tremendous amount of experience and have proven themselves under pressure. They’re a year wiser and a year tougher.”
Last season, the Huskies finished with a great record that earned them the No. 3 seed in the four-team CAA tournament. In his then 11th year with Northeastern, Coach Nichols picked up his 200th career win at Northeastern with a victory in their final game of the regular season.
With the departure of Brown, Nichols will have to look toward the new season from a whole new perspective because it is a whole new team with brand new captains. Senior middle/outside hitter Lauryn Ciszek, senior outside hitter Stephanie Starnes and junior middle hitter Nicole Bishop will take the reins as the captains to lead their team to victory.
Ciszek played in 24 matches last season and finished 6th in the CAA with a .262 hitting percentage. She has impressed her coach on and off the court. Nichols said the three primary things he looks for are athletic prowess, academic success and most importantly, leadership skills. Ciszek’s skill set contains a balance of those traits, which is especially impressive with such a demanding major.
Ciszek did not know she would be named a captain prior to a phone interview with The News but she knew that as a senior she would be stepping into a huge role.
“Stepping into a leadership role, I hope that I am a good leader,” Ciszek said. “I hope that I am able to get the freshmen acquainted and used to Northeastern, have them understand what our goals as a team are and of course I want to do well and I want my team to do well.”
Starnes, who appeared in seven matches last season, is the second senior captain. Starnes said that much like Ciszek, she hopes to excel in her upcoming captain position.
“I want to work on being able to do well, especially in a leadership role,” Starnes said. “Be somebody that people can look up to and something along the lines of that.”
She called the past couple years heartbreakers but said she is looking forward to pushing herself and her team as hard as she can next season.
Bishop, a junior from Park City, Utah, is the youngest captain on the team, as well as the tallest member of the team at 6’5. She appeared in 27 matches and was second on the team in blocks with 82 last season. She came two kills short of matching her career high of 16 in an October match against Delaware. In the CAA semifinals against Delaware Bishop had five kills and four blocks.
The season kicks off on August 26 with the Beanpot Classic. The first CAA contest will be against Hofstra on September 24.
