DePaul Blue Demons head coach Marie Zidek called her shot before her team entered conference play.
Zidek was full of conviction and faith when she said her team was ‘turning the corner.’ Her intuition bore fruit in a historic season for DePaul volleyball filled with stats and achievements beginning with, “For the first time…”
For the first time in program history, DePaul won their opening-round Big East matchup in straight sets and won two consecutive games in a postseason tournament.
They won 20-plus games for the first time since the 2001 season, and DePaul was selected as a host site for the first and second rounds of the National Invitational Volleyball Championship (NIVC) for the first time since its revival in 2017.
Before their opening-round matchup versus St. Johns in the Big East tournament, coach Zidek had the team hold hands in a circle in preparation for their announcements before they went public.
“When the awards came out, I was like, man, I think it would be really cool to announce it just for our team first, so they could experience the team, the players who won the awards,” Zidek said. “We made it a point as a coaching staff to try to protect shared experiences, and have as many shared experiences as we can, outside of the match.”
The final announcement was for graduate libero Rachel Krasowski winning Big East Libero of the Year, an award she’d been chasing since she first stepped foot on campus.
“It was almost like a sigh of relief; something came off my shoulders,” Krasowski said. “I was just overwhelmed and excited with all these emotions that I just went into tears of joy, and then all of my teammates gave me a hug. That was probably the cherry on top of my entire career playing volleyball.”
Four players earned all-conference honors: Aly Kindelberger, Jill Pressly, Audrey Klemp and Rachel Krasowski earned All-Big East nods — the most ever for a Blue Demon roster. Krasowski also won Libero of the Year in the Big East, the first time ever in DePaul history.
The awards didn’t stop there. Krasowski and Pressly earned American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) All-Region recognition. Just three Blue Demons had earned AVCA All-Region recognition, and they are the first DePaul pair to do so in the same year.
But those four players won’t be on the roster come next fall. Returning players like sophomore middle Megan Scholz, junior right-side hitter Grace Brooker and freshman setter Amanda Saeger have big shoes to fill. The plan is to keep the ball rolling with them and first-year players.
“You blow it all up and you start over, right?” Zidek said.
That’s why coach Zidek’s desk was a cluttered mess filled with papers and a whiteboard displaying players’ names on it — potential targets in the transfer portal, those who’ve exhausted eligibility and returning players.
“You have players leave, new players come in, right?” Zidek said. “What percentage of offense are you losing? What percentage of defense are you losing?”
This is the life of teams trying to reload and not rebuild. A continuing theme for the program under Zidek’s leadership is to make it clear to players that everybody brings value, everyone needs to be capable and feel tied to what they’re doing.
“The match will find you, whatever role you have,” Zidek said. “If you’re in for one point, or you’re in for all the points, the match moment will find you.”
The match found freshman setter Amanda Saeger during the NIVC. An injury to senior setter Ashley Cudiamat late in the year gave Saeger the chance to run the offense. With a brand-new lineup, Saeger set career highs in assists in both NIVC matches — 38 and 54.
“(Amanda) stepped in and honestly, ran away with it,” Krasowski said. “She did amazing. It was like she wasn’t even a freshman anymore in the way she was playing. She came out and knew what she wanted to do … I’m extremely proud of her because that is something not a lot of people can do, especially being her age.”
Saeger took it with a grain of salt.
“I never look at my assists on the scoreboard,” Saeger said. “Sometimes I look at my hitter’s kills to know if I’m distributing the ball. It’s great to have a good number up there, but ultimately that number doesn’t matter if we’re not winning.”
While the veterans of the team earned recognition and accolades, the first-year players also made their contributions felt. This roster featured enough depth at multiple positions that if an injury occurred, the next girl up would be ready. A big part of that was the tight-knit bond the girls formed this year and knowing that this year would be some players’ last.
“We’re more than just volleyball players, we’re more than just teammates, we’re all really good friends and almost sisters,” Krasowski said, reflecting on her final season.
The aim now is to maintain national relevance, having improved from a ranking of 285th to the top 75 in six years. Coach Zidek’s emphasis on consistency, resilience and the value of every player will still be the standard moving forward.
In DePaul volleyball’s 50th season, the stars aligned. The program — and its players — reached new heights they had only dreamed of. Those dreams became reality. The program and its players stuck together through the tough seasons and reaped the rewards this fall and winter.
“I’m excited just to continue to get better. I have four more years ahead of me. That means I have four more years of growth to be the best player I can be,” Saeger said. “It’s exciting every year to just get better and better and see where we can go.”
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