Senior Trio Gave And Received A Great Deal
December 12, 2010 | Volleyball
Dec. 12, 2010
By Gregg Bell
UW Director of Writing
SEATTLE - Becky Perry sat slumped on a padded, folded chair in the corner of the Huskies' volleyball team room. Her face was flush.
A few feet away, senior classmate Jenna Hagglund stood in the center of the silent, mostly empty room. She stared blankly at nothing in particular.
Neither one said anything. No one had to.
Their thrilling, rewarding Huskies career - and their particularly gratifying senior season -- had just ended cruelly and abruptly late Saturday night. Less than 24 hours after a rollicking upset of second-seeded Nebraska had left unseeded Washington one match from the Final Four, error-free California dominated the Dawgs.
The Huskies couldn't match the energy they had in beating the Cornhuskers the night before. And they were left in tears.
"What we learned here will last a lifetime," said Perry, an outside hitter from Austin, Texas. She is still battling through the tragic death of her older sister Tiffanie, her best friend, early this season.
Speaking through sobs moments after Saturday night's straight-set loss to the Bears, Perry impressively found perspective. She drew strength from the bonds she has forged as a Husky. Those could prove more valuable than the two Elite Eight appearances her class had in four years at UW.
"A lot of programs have girls come out having won national titles, and we never did that. But my character will be different for the rest of my life," Perry said, sniffling. "And I will have this family of my teammates for the rest of my life.
"And that might be a greater gift."
Hagglund still seemed to be in a daze 20 minutes after the match when asked to reflect on her UW career.
"Tough so soon," she said, managing a chuckle through her tears. "We put a ton into it. And we loved every minute of it.
"That's all I can say."
Classmate Kindra Carlson did all she could against Cal, with 20 kills. She and Perry were both named to the All-Pac-10 team this season. Carlson, from Eaton, Colo., was an All-American in 2009 and it would be a shock if she wasn't again in 2010.
"I wouldn't trade my four years for anything. I never looked back and said I wished I went somewhere else. Here is where I call home," Carlson said. "It's been awesome. And where we've come as a team, from where we were to where it ended, it's amazing. It was a fun ride."
The ride made this team coach Jim McLaughlin's most gratifying of the 10 he's led at Washington.
Look beyond the up-and-down regular season. Beyond the nine losses and the uncharacteristic fifth-place finish in the tough Pac-10 this year, the first time in six years UW didn't finish first or second in the conference.
McLaughlin is proud that these three seniors forged through adversity and effort a unity, a "vibe," they say their previous Husky teams lacked. That sparked a late-season resurgence, sweeps of nationally ranked Michigan and Hawaii to begin a brutally tough NCAA tournament draw -- then Friday's wild, electric win over Nebraska that had all the thrills and intensity of an Apple Cup. Or a Rose Bowl.
"This year, we finally figured out how to come together," Carlson said of a goal the senior trio set this summer. "In previous years, there's always been that the vibe just hasn't been right. This year, it's been different. It's been individuals coming together as one.
"This year, we finally figured it out."
Perry said that vibe wasn't right when she redshirted in 2006, even though that was months after the Huskies won the NCAA title.
As juniors, she and her classmates saw lack of unity as an issue in 2009, when the Huskies finished second in the Pac-10 but were then upset in the second round of the NCAAs at Colorado State.
After four years playing together, Perry (1,229) and Carlson (1,251) finished with 2,480 combined kills. Carlson finished eighth in school history. Perry - an All-Pac-10 selection in 2008 and 2010 -- finished 10th.
Hagglund was the starting setter in all four of her seasons at UW, compiling the second-most career assists in school history and 10th-most in Pac-10 Conference history with 5,326.
The three seniors led UW to the NCAA Elite Eight in 2008 and again this past weekend, and to 20-win seasons every year. Yet their legacy will likely be the unity they created, and the examples they set for rising juniors such as All-Pacific Region middle blocker Bianca Rowland, who was also in tears while exchanging hugs with her family inside Hec Ed late Saturday night.
Perry, Carlson and Hagglund not only showed the younger Huskies how to win. They showed them how to lead, to unite, to succeed in ways not always measured by attack or serve percentages.
"This team went through an awful lot," McLaughlin said. "And what they accomplished as a group, to me, was a blast - especially these last four weeks.
"We figured a lot of stuff out."
And that, as Perry says so eloquently, might be a greater gift.
