If the 2010 volleyball team wants to have any chance of repeating its trip to the NESCAC finals — let alone making it back to the NCAA quarterfinals as it did last season — it will have to quickly fill a gaping offensive hole left by an injury to the team's biggest force.
Senior outside hitter Dawson Joyce−Mendive, who led the NESCAC with 449 kills in 2009, suffered a season−ending torn ACL ligament in her right knee in early August.
"I was playing and went up to hit and landed funny," Joyce−Mendive said. On Aug. 6, she underwent knee surgery on and is now listed as not just a quad−captain but also as a manager.
The rest of the squad's talented roster has the additional challenge of replacing its dominant outside hitter's impressive stats, particularly after it lost last year's NESCAC Player of the Year Dena Feiger (A '10), who boasted a league−leading 1,349 assists last year.
"It's not ideal, as she's a great player and we relied on her heavily," said senior quad−captain Caitlin Updike, who joined Joyce−Mendive as part of the two−headed offensive monster on the Jumbos' left side — an attack that averaged more kills than every other NESCAC team.
"We don't have any players who play like Dawson did," Updike added, "but our deep bench is our strength, and we have other girls to step up and fill her position."
One of the players who will come into the spotlight this year is sophomore setter Kendall Lord. She has the unenviable task of replacing Feiger, who last year became the first Jumbo ever to be honored as conference Player of the Year.
"Dena was great, but I'm super stoked to be the starting center," said Lord, who, like the majority of the Jumbo roster, hails from California. "She taught me the formula to win in this league."
Aside from the shared position, Lord is a very different player from her predecessor. Standing at 5−foot−10 — compared to Feiger's 5−foot−6 — Lord will be able to contribute some desperately needed hitting and blocking up front as well as garner a few assists.
"We're definitely different players," Lord said. "I'm taller, so I can help the team with dunks and blocks."
Other returning players include junior Lexi Nicholas and sophomore Brittany Neff — the Jumbos' two best blockers statistically, with 58 and 56 blocks respectively last fall. In Joyce−Mendive's absence, Neff and Nicholas will have to step up and assume a more active offensive role. On the defensive side, junior Audrey Kuan returns as libero, while classmate Cara Spieler is expected to fill a variety of roles, including outside and opposite hitter.
The majority of the kills will still come from Updike, who finished with 435 last season — good for second−most in the NESCAC. Yet after Updike, the Jumbos' offense remains a question mark.
Hoping to answer some of these questions before the start of the season, the Jumbos are heading to Georgia this weekend to play in the Emory Invitational, where they will face some of the best teams in the country, including national No. 3 Emory.
The team will return from Georgia for its home opener next Tuesday against Gordon College, and some of the roles on the team may still be undefined heading into its NESCAC opener on Sept. 17 against Bates.
"Since Dawson and I got here, we've been an outside hitter — dominated team," Updike said. "Now we're going to switch up our offense and be more dynamic. We'll look a lot different, and be a lot harder to scout."
