SportsVolleyball

Senior leads by Moore than example

Allison Moore is a senior middle blocker for the women's volleyball team at the University of La Verne. She has played volleyball for seven years since her sophomore year in high school. Moore said she enjoys playing volleyball at ULV and has made a lot of friends on the team. She is the only senior this season. / photo by Naoko Yokota
Allison Moore is a senior middle blocker for the women’s volleyball team at the University of La Verne. She has played volleyball for seven years since her sophomore year in high school. Moore said she enjoys playing volleyball at ULV and has made a lot of friends on the team. She is the only senior this season. / photo by Naoko Yokota

by Araceli Esparza
Editor in Chief

When senior Allison Moore looked into enrolling at the University of La Verne little more than three years ago, she initially did so through the influence of the school’s track coach, Pat Widolff.

But soon after the Rancho Cucamonga resident chose to pursue her college career at ULV, then-assistant volleyball coach Don Flora began his own recruiting, and Moore joined the women’s volleyball squad as its middle blocker in fall 1996.

“Some friends I played club with in high school talked about playing at La Verne, and Don Flora talked to me about it,” said Moore, who is a communications major. “So I just kind of decided to take a shot.”

Moore said she did not receive a great deal of playing time as a freshman on the women’s squad, but her opportunity in volleyball eventually helped her grow to love the sport. Though she was also part of the track team that first year, Moore soon set her college career to a different pace-and stepping on to a 1,800 square foot court for competition became part of that change.

During her second year on the women’s squad, Moore experienced one of her most memorable game performances.

“That’s when I really got my chance to play … to really be on the team,” she said. “In the second round of the playoffs that year, we were playing Chapman, and I remember seeing them play and thinking they were so good. Then we beat them.

“That was one of the best games I’ve played; it was a good, positive game.”

Moore completed that season as one of six Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) players selected to the Second Team All-Conference.

Now the team’s lone senior, Moore said this is one of the most difficult years on the team for her because she is the only remaining team member from her entering class.

“I came in as a freshman with [senior Sarah Henry],” Moore said. Both Henry and senior Michelle Louie decided not to play volleyball this year. “For situations that they had, they are not on the team, and I support them. Now I’m the only senior.”

Moore said she has taken the lead as a co-captain for ULV’s women’s squad, but that it is “difficult being there on my own” without the teammates with which she has grown the past three years.

“She’s carried herself well as the lone senior,” said junior Amy Brummel, who is an outside hitter and the team’s other captain. “I think it hurt her in the beginning, but she was going to be the one not to quit and take it as far as she could.”

Aside from these personal setbacks, however, Moore said she has never considered herself a boisterous team member.

“One of my weaknesses is that I’m not very loud, I lack hype in the game,” she said. “If I get a kill, I’m not the first to jump up afterward.”

She also said she has learned that leadership and team spirit come from example. Flora agreed, adding that Moore’s reserved personality on the court serves as a plus.

“She’s quietly intense, and she’s a thinker,” said Flora, who is now the team’s head coach. “She’s the type of player that thinks through and processes everything in her head.”

Moore said she has become a lot more confident and aggressive as a player over the last three years, and she knows what is expected of her both on and off the court.

“Since I am the only senior, the girls are watching what I do. If I slack, you know, they will do the same thing,” she said. “I don’t tell people, ‘Do this, do that.’ I just expect them to see me and other people doing it.

“And then they would be doing it like that.”

Brummel said Moore is effective as a positive role model for the squad because “she has a quiet way of leading the team, but you can look at her as leader by the way she presents herself to the team and the coaches.”

“When she gets her drive, she will be there,” said Brummel. “And when she really wants something, it’ll happen.”

As for plans after the conclusion of this season and her graduation this May, Moore said she is looking forward to her wedding to ULV alumnus J.R. Gonsalves this summer. She also intends to continue playing volleyball recreationally, she said, and is looking into coaching at the club or high school level.

“We’ll miss her personality and her ability to come in and make a good play,” said Brummel. “She’s definitely a person you’ll miss.”

Araceli Esparza
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Naoko Yokota
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