When Point Loma Nazarene University, outside hitter, Abigail Nua goes through her Rolodex of memories from this past season, the one that stands out most happened off the court, and has both nothing and everything to do with volleyball.
“It would be my baptism,” Nua, a 5-foot-10-inch tall sophomore and All-West Region honoree, reflected. “I got baptized early in the season with my brother at 11 p.m.”
One message to the group chat and moments later, Nua was surrounded by teammates.
Longer in the tooth and less technologically savvy, it took a phone call to get through to head coach Jonathan Scott.
“Granted, I did have to call Jon and he was very slow [to arrive],” Nua said with a laugh. “That will be my biggest memory of this team.”
“I may or may not have been sleeping for like two hours before the baptism went down,” Scott added. “So it took me a little bit to get going. That is also my favorite memory, looking at a single snapshot [of the season].”
Six days removed from PLNU’s opening round NCAA Tournament loss to Cal Poly Pomona, the closeness of the team and the realization it will never be exactly as is, again, is what Scott is most lamenting.
“Every season has a different team that creates the Point Loma volleyball identity,” Scott said. “This particular team is now no more, so there’s a great grieving that goes on, losing the girls that are no longer going to be on the team.”
“Realizing that I won’t get to see everyone tomorrow has made me sad,” Nua added. “I loved the seniors on this team.”
The Nov 30. opening round match marked the second NCAA Tournament appearance for the Sea Lions in program history. Ending the season 21-7 overall, PLNU won its first PacWest Championship, getting an automatic bid to the tournament, a year after just missing out on qualifying.
“It’s really easy to categorize each season by an identity,” Scott said. “This team’s identity was ‘we don’t know what we are going to look like out there but we know we are good enough.’ We had a ton of injuries and I remember telling those girls in the locker room after the loss, that every single player was a starter at some point this year, and every single one of them contributed to winning the conference title, and that’s not something I can remember ever happening before.”
PLNU opened fast, leading CPP by eight in the opening set.
And then nerves set in, with CPP winning all three sets (25-22, 26-24, 25-19).
“It was an especially painful way to lose,” Scott said. “From an outsider’s perspective, it might look like we got our butts handed to us, but in set one and set two, we were the better team for almost the entire time and I think the nerves got the best of us. Cal Poly Pomona is too good to let your foot off the gas against.”
“It felt like we were in control,” added Nua. “The nerves of ‘we could win this set’ made us back up a little. I let nerves get to me.”
Nua attributed the nerves to inexperience, with nobody on the current roster having played in a postseason match before.
“We have never been in a situation of we are in the postseason playing the top teams in the nation, it was win or go home,” she said.
Nua finished the match with 10 kills, one block, and one ace. Junior middle blocker Anna Massari also had 10 kills and added three blocks. Seniors Claire Smith and Torina Hommes notched six and five kills respectively.
In addition to Smith and Hommes, the team is graduating middle blockers Grace Hicks and Brooke Hanshumaker.
Scott cited narrowly missing out on the tournament last year as a big motivator for this season – something he hopes to build on next year.
“The girls who were returners had a bitter taste in their mouth and had an extra edge about them throughout the year,” he said. “Losing the way, we just lost, is going to leave a sour taste. Hopefully, these returners are going to remember that taste and use it as fuel.”
“We’ve now been here before,” Nua added. “This is the bar that we set and everyone expects to meet that bar.”
