Broadside Sports

Fernanda Bartels, Staff Writer

This year is the Colonial Athletic Association’s 25th anniversary.

Inspired by the CAA’s milestone and my upcoming 21st birthday, I decided to look into some numbers and interesting facts of international volleyball at George Mason University.

I am celebrating 21 years of life; Pat Kendrick, our head coach, is celebrating her 25th season at Mason.
Kendrick is the longest-tenured coach in the conference.

She also ranks 44th among active head coaches with 405 career victories.

Along with Kendrick, the Mason women’s volleyball program is symbol of tradition in the CAA.

The name Mason Volleyball carries history and success. The Patriots have won seven CAA championships with only the William & Mary Tribe holding more titles.

The Patriots played in 11 championship games. It is interesting to see that Mason hosted the championship four times, but never won a championship title on their home court.

The odds are against us winning a championship match on our home court. Of course, hosting the championship would be amazing, but nothing would be better than winning the tournament.

As part of the anniversary celebration, the CAA selected a 25th anniversary team. Mason had six of its volleyball athletes honored by the CAA.

An interesting observation: four of the six Mason players honored are international students.
Virag Domokos from Hungary, Olga Matejickova from the Czech Republic, Aline Pereira from Brazil and Jesica Umansky from Argentina are the four international athletes that made history at Mason.

Because I am from Brazil, it is important to me that Mason’s history of international players has succeeded at the collegiate level.

It inspires me to succeed and reminds me that if someone else has done it, I can also do it too.
Besides me, we have three other international students on the team. Motivated by these top-four international players, we are trying to make our history.

Now that we have seen the numbers from the past, it is time to look at the present. We are leading the CAA with a .231 attack percentage, and 230 blocks.

We are second in assists and kills in the conference. The numbers have been working in our favor.
Backed up with a rich history in the sport, we will be able to build our own history with our numbers.