Sports: Volleyball

Calling the Shots

SETUP: Loveless ’05

When Liz Loveless ’05 was in eighth grade, she was told she had good hands—so good that she landed in the setter’s position on her club volleyball squad, a spot comparable to quarterback on a football team.

Now a senior at Rochester, Loveless continues to distinguish herself as the setter on the volleyball team, where she not only positions her Yellowjacket teammates to take point-winning kills, she also calls the shots.

“I run the offense,” says Loveless, who was recruited as a freshman to Rochester. “I have to be a good leader. I tell my hitters what I want them to run and always try to take the second ball so I can put the ball up for them.”

Named First Team All-State last year, the chemical engineering major from Syracuse is making plans for success during her last year on the Rochester court. She and Kristin Vogt ’05 serve as cocaptains.

“I’m really proud of where the program has gone since I was a freshman,” Loveless says. “I came from an undefeated high school team to winning five games—if that many—in my freshman year at Rochester. But since then we’ve developed from being a pushover team to becoming well respected. I’m hoping we can place higher in the UAA conference and in states. Making it to the NCAAs would also be something I’d like to achieve my last year.”

But to jell as a team, coach Linda Downey says, you have to have more than athletic ability.
“You can have all the skills in the world, but you need congeniality among players, and it’s Liz’s job to foster that,” Downey says. “Over the years, she’s opened up, personality wise, to both coaches and players, and she’s a good role model, both academically and athletically. Other students respect her. She gives 110 percent in everything. I couldn’t ask for anyone to work harder.”

Downey has introduced her team captains to the importance of attitude in the psychology of a winning team. Loveless appreciates that.

“All of us on the team love to play volleyball, but sometimes there is a lack of competitiveness on the court,” she says. “I want us to hate to lose more than we love to win. I want the team to really bond, on the court and off.

“I have to have a lot of confidence in my teammates. I depend on them to make a good pass and my hitters to put the ball down on the other side of the court. If somebody messes up, you can’t take the time to wonder whether that person is going to make the next play or not. That’s where the confidence in your teammates comes in.”

“I have a lot of confidence in Liz,” Downey says. “I’m able to sit down with her and consult her on a lot of things. She will continue to be the leader out there next year.”

—Jayne Denker