Joining the Seahawks
Fisher named interim head volleyball coach; Seahawks off to near perfect start
Autumn Fisher was a standout for the St. Mary’s College of Maryland volleyball program for four years. Today, not even a year removed from her final match as a player, Fisher is the team’s interim head coach.
Fisher is now standing on the sidelines for the Seahawks, replacing Jeremy Sands, who stepped down after two seasons. She was announced last week as the new head coach for the time being as volunteer coach Kelly Martin, originally from Canada, is awaiting her work visa.
Fisher said the original plan was for Martin to take over the team, but paperwork is holding things up. Once that paperwork is complete, the two will reverse roles, according to Fisher.
Fisher, a four-year player for the Seahawks and three-year captain who is originally from Hagerstown, finished with 750 points, 618 kills, 624 digs, 92 blocks, 72 aces and 46 assists. Fisher, graduated from St. Mar y’s this spring with a bachelor’s degree in public policy and a minor in economics.
“It’s so much fun. It’s definitely a lot different, but I filled a similar role last year,” Fisher said, “so it’s not a huge transition for me or the girls so that’s nice.
“We have a volunteer head coach whose work visa isn’t in yet, so they knew I was around and Scott Devine, our athletic director, forwarded my information on to Kelly and she gave me a call and we did the whole interview. She was really excited about it. She said she wanted to hire me even before she talked to me. We get along really well. We just hit it off and we’ve been working really well together.”
Fisher said with a small recruiting class, each player is basically playing a new position. The Seahawks lost their first match Sept. 1 to Johns Hopkins in four sets, then went to Virginia Beach, Va., for the Virginia Wesleyan tournament and won four consecutive matches over two days, Sept. 2 and 3. They play today and Saturday in the Washington & Lee Invitational, then return home to play Gallaudet on Tuesday.
“We’ve got to make sure that everyone is trying their best in a position that might not be as desirable,” Fisher said, “and they’ve all done extremely well so far. We went 4-0 this past weekend with our strange lineup and it seemed to work. I guess the main thing is keeping that positivity and working through adversity. We’re on a four-game winning streak; it’s pretty great actually.
“Right now we have quite a few defensive specialists that were only DS’ through the past three years of their career, and now they have to hit outside and right side, so it’s fantastic to see that we pick up balls more than we have in time’s past because we do have so many defensive specialists on the court.”
Meghan Griffiths and Alli Graf, team captains this year, said they are looking for ward to the season, with all its changes.
“This season we’re looking forward to using different strategies than in the past,” Griffiths said. “We have a new set of hitters that have previously only played back row. They’re really stepping up to do what’s best for the team in order for us to be competitive.”
Graf said the team desires to work hard.
“We want to play at the highest level we can considering our large graduation class last year and small entering class,” said Graf, who on Wednesday was named the Capital Athletic Conference volleyball player of the week. It is her first-ever CAC weekly honor since joining the program last season. “This is definitely a building year for us, but we are up for the challenge and we push each other hard every day. It helps that we have strong team cohesion on and off the court.
“We all really like our new coach. She has a lot of energy and a lot of passion for the game. She has high expectations for us and that helps us to never slack off.”