By Nathan Vaughan
This season the volleyball team has kept graduate trainer Abby Wertz busy. The only player to not have significant injuries this year is sophomore middle hitter Jillian Robinson, though she has lingering knee issues, head coach Ken Nichols said.
Many of the problems can be chalked up to wear and tear, though a few of the incidents have simply been a mix of bad luck and freak accidents. Ranging from broken fingers to mononucleosis to TMJ, also known as lock jaw, these injuries have affected about three-fourths of the team’s key players, Nichols said.
“The myriad of different skills you need to be successful in this sport, the ability to play defense block set, all these different things you need to be good at,” Nichols said. “There are just that many more opportunities to get these kind of little foibles and injuries. If anyone ever did the math, the number of times these kids jump and land, at a full sprint dive to the floor, stick their hands up six inches from a relatively hard ball moving at 70 miles per hour. There are a lot of opportunities to get hurt out there, not to mention the flying elbows.”
Lost early in the season was senior opposite hitter Sarah Stein. Stein was the victim of the aforementioned lock jaw. The lock jaw first started during the summer, and Stein was forced to undergo emergency jaw surgery in California, as reported in a Sept. 15 issue of The News. The surgery caused her to miss the first week of school, and she was unable to return to the court until the Huskies’ first home matches of the season when they hosted the Mass. Volleyball Challenge. Stein was dominant in the two matches and was named the tournament MVP.
Although she was cleared to play, Stein still hadn’t fully recovered from the jaw surgery, she said. She was forced onto a liquid diet beginning at the end of August and stopped it about a month ago. She has to wear protective mouth gear everyday, and she will continue to wear the mouth guard for about a year. She wears a lower one during the day and while playing and an upper one for sleeping.
Stein wasn’t done visiting Wertz though. Lately she has developed severe discomfort in her right hitting shoulder, Stein said. This started almost four weeks ago when she was playing at James Madison. As of late she has been forced to avoid hitting and blocking during practice, only playing the back row.
“As of right now I am planning on playing all the rest of the games,” Stein said. “Every time out there I act like I’m not injured at all. I go at 100 percent, I swing at 100 percent, I block at 100 percent. I do not show that I am injured whatsoever. If I’m on the court I’m on the court healthy and if I’m not I’m out for a reason. I don’t hold anything back.”
The same weekend that Stein injured her shoulder, the Huskies were without sophomore setter and opposite hitter Britney Brown. Brown had missed the previous week to an unknown illness. She was tested for mono, but the test came back negative, Brown said. She traveled with the team and attempted to warm up against JMU but was unable to play. Brown was also forced to miss the next week of practice. In her return to play at VCU Brown was able to record a double-double. The next game at William ‘ Mary Brown recorded a triple-double. Her return performance earned her the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) player of the week honors. The next Sunday against UNC Wilmington Brown set the Northeastern record for service aces in a match with 10.
“I was really nervous going in missing practice,” said Brown after her return to play. “Just getting back on the court helped. I had to put it all out on the court to help my team win. My body felt fine.”
Sophomore middle hitter Caitlin Tittl broke her right pinky finger on her hitting hand, about three to four weeks ago. It still hasn’t completely healed and Tittl is forced to tape it with her ring finger. She can bend the finger without much discomfort, but the injury has affected not only her hitting and blocking but her passing as well, she said.
“It has been really difficult, especially with our starters who are injured or who have been injured this season just because we can’t always rely on them like we could if they were at 100 percent,” Tittl said. “Sarah [Stein]’s shoulder is really bothering her and she is one of our big hitters, she is a high percentage hitter, and we can’t go to her as much because we don’t want to wear out her shoulder too much before the end of the season. It was really difficult because we had to mess with lineups that we have never had to try before.”
One of the most unnerving injuries happened Sunday. Junior libero Leah Neubeck received an elbow to the eye in the middle of the decisive game five at Fairfield from teammate Stein. The elbow caused Neubeck to bleed, forcing her to leave the game. She was able to return for a few points later in the set after cleaning up and changing her jersey. She was forced to miss practice Tuesday as a precaution. It was unknown as of press time whether she received a concussion or not.
The Huskies have a few other injuries and illnesses. Freshman middle hitter Lauryn Ciszec was forced to miss more than a month after she contracted mono near the time of the Cal Poly Invitational in early September. Ciszec played sparingly against UNC Wilmington and Georgia State, but did not play last weekend.
Senior outside hitter Brianna Seitz has been experiencing lower leg pain which has been limiting her in practice, Nichols said.
Senior captain and outside hitter Lauren DeTurk has a strained lower back which has affected her passing, she said.
Sophomore middle hitter Allison Knoff caught her navel ring on the net in practice, and it was ripped out, according to Nichols. She was forced to sit out of practice following the incident.
Despite all of the injuries, the Huskies have been playing dominant volleyball. Going into last weekend they were riding an 11-game winning streak, one of the best in school history. Most of the injuries occurred during the streak. Now with most of the team at least relatively healthy, the team can look forward to finishing off the season strong and hopefully hosting the CAA tournament.
Although the injuries have piled up this season, this is far from the worst Nichols has faced in his tenure at Northeastern. When he arrived at Northeastern in 2000, Nichols immediately faced an onslaught of serious injuries, the worst of which was a car accident that took three players out of the lineup for most of the season before it even started, though one player did return for a few matches, he said. In one game against Hartford he had seven active players. Two were severely hurt, but played anyway. The Huskies won that match, with only five healthy players.
Despite far more severe injuries, the 2000 Huskies finished third in America East. The next year they won the America East tournament to capture the only NCAA bid a Husky volleyball team has ever attained.
