Anderson sticks with softball
Bishop Noll grad has been 2-sport athlete at VU but had to choose one over other this season
Valparaiso University senior Brittany Anderson hadn’t touched a volleyball in months.
But the 5-foot-11 setter and 2017 Bishop Noll graduate learned the VU women’s volleyball team needed a player on Thursday, so Anderson hopped in her car and drove toward Normal, Illinois, to join her teammates for a quarterfinal match in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.
“I didn’t want them to be eliminated from the tournament because they didn’t have enough players,” Anderson said. “I hadn’t touched a volleyball all semester, but I was willing to do whatever it took to allow the team to play.”
Her efforts went for naught, however, as COVID-19 and subsequent contact tracing left VU without enough players for the match — even with Anderson — resulting in a forfeit that ended VU’s season.
Anderson received that news while she was on the road and headed back home to what’s kept her away from the spring volleyball season in the first place: softball.
Anderson has been a dual-sport athlete since arriving at VU, playing volleyball in the fall and softball in the spring.
But the 2020 volleyball season was moved to this spring due to the coronavirus pandemic, forcing Anderson to choose between the two.
“It’s something I was dreading and avoiding at all costs,” she said. “But both my coaches sat down with me and made it stress-free. They supported whatever I did.”
The spring volleyball season was condensed to a conference-only schedule, while the softball season was mostly unchanged. Those factors led Anderson to opt for softball over volleyball.
As a graduate student, though, Anderson has enough eligibility remaining to return to volleyball in the fall and then play one more softball season next spring before her planned graduation in summer 2022 with a master’s degree in sports administration.
On the diamond this spring, Anderson has started 21 of VU’s 23 games and is hitting .255. She’s second on the team in home runs (2) and third in slugging percentage (.447). She believes those power numbers are the result of extra time in the weight room last fall, which came during the first true offseason Anderson has had since — well, she couldn’t remember when.
“With me constantly being in season, there’s only so much training I’ve been able to do,” she said. “I was able to take a step back and focus on some weight training. It was a different side of it, getting more reps in instead of just preparing for the next weekend of
competition.”
That her volleyball teammates’ season ended due to circumstances off the court has lingered on Anderson’s mind. She expressed optimism that her final year as a student-athlete won’t have the same level of complication that this one has had.
“It was heartbreaking for the seniors, for the team, for everybody,” she said. “But that’s the sports world nowadays. I can’t wait until we can escape that.”
Tidbits: VU’s football team is 3-1 after winning a game at Drake for the first time, defeating the Bulldogs 10-7 on Saturday. … Crown Point graduate Alexis Holloway is 7-6 with a 2.99 ERA for Notre Dame. … Iowa’s Antonise Christian, a West Side graduate, placed fourth in the 200-meter dash in 24.05 seconds during the Big Florida Invitational in Jacksonville last week.