Former Coyote thrives at Grand Canyon

Dana Edington went into her freshman season of college like many athletes looking to find their way.

“I figured I was looking at having a typical freshman year, probably not see a lot of playing time early and just have to find my place on the team,” she said. “I thought maybe towards the end of the year I might earn a spot in the rotation.”

Coming down with walking pneumonia as preseason volleyball practice got under way only complicated matters for the 2006 Centennial High School graduate.

With a challenging road ahead, the Grand Canyon University Antelope peered up from the proverbial bottom of the Grand Canyon, standing next to the Colorado River. She wasn’t all that optimistic about the hike towards the Rim, some 5,000 feet above her.

While her plight initially seemed daunting, Edington got herself out of the hole and into the heart of the volleyball team’s season before she knew it.

“Well, when you have a player come in and pass out the first day of practice, it’s hard to think that you’re going to be able to count on her,” said Kris Naber, the coach of the NCAA Div-II school in Phoenix. “Once she recovered from the pneumonia, she basically had one full practice before we started our season. We went to this tournament in California to start the season and were getting beat pretty badly. I figured we didn’t have anything to lose so I threw Dana in there and she just tore it up.”

Edington remembers the opportunity vividly.

“Well I almost felt a little guilty because I hadn’t earned that opportunity,” she said. “My teammates had been working so hard getting ready for the season and I was only able to watch as I got healthy. But once I got the chance, I was determined to show I belonged out there.”

While the Antelopes would drop the match, the former Coyote had solidified herself not only as a player that could contribute, but one that could dominate. Edington racked up a team-leading 383 kills, a mark that is the eighth-best single-season figure in the school’s history. Grand Canyon finished third in the PacWest Conference with a 17-14 record.

If she came in as an unknown, the outside hitter caught the attention of conference opponents, as she was named Freshman of the Year and earned second team all-conference honors.

Edington said the season brought its share of challenges.

The first was a change in position.

“I’d pretty much played in the middle throughout high school because of my height,” said the 6-foot sophomore. “But Coach Naber recruited me to play outside, which is what I’d always wanted to do because you get more chances to kill the ball.”

Edington was able to physically dominate at the high school level, earning co-region player of the year honors as a senior while leading the Coyotes to a state semifinal appearance. Edington learned to add some finesse to her power game in college.

“It was a huge shock the first time I went up for a kill and there was somebody looking eye-to-eye with me at the net,” she said. “That just didn’t happen very often in high school. I had to learn to adjust to be more precise with where I hit the ball, hitting around the block and all those things.”

Grand Canyon returns six of 15 players from a season ago. Naber and her outside hitter have high expectations as the 2007 season gets under way (the Antelopes opened play Thursday night in the Adams State Tournament which continues through Saturday).

“It will be a completely different looking team, but I think we’ve got the potential to be better,” said Naber of her squad which was tabbed to finish third in the seven-team league in a preseason coaches poll.

“As for Dana, I’ve talked to her about the fact that other teams are going to look at her stats and gear their defenses to try to stop her, so she’s going to have to be that much better. I knew, even last year, that physically she had the talent to dominate but she really impressed me with her mental toughness. That raised her game to another level.”

Edington, a preseason first-team all-league selection, is ready to meet that reality head on.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge,” Edington said. “I know that I was a surprise element last year, that most teams had never heard of me before, but I think I can take my game to another level. I want to beat all the numbers I put up last year (383 kills, 222 digs, 49 blocks, 34 aces) but do it with fewer errors.”

As one of six returners, Edington said she is willing to provide leadership.

“I know I’m only a sophomore, but coach told us that we’re supposed to give the new girls a sense of how things are done at Grand Canyon,” she said. “I really think this group has so much talent. We need to learn each other’s games and build some chemistry. The chemistry last year was the best of any team I’ve ever been a part of. There wasn’t any girl drama, which is rare. If this team gets to where it’s as close as last year’s bunch we can do some great things.”

Edington and the rest of her Antelope teammates open their home schedule Sept. 15 with an alumni game, before getting into conference play Sept. 25 in a 7 p.m. match against Notre Dame de Namur University.

Grand Canyon University is at 3300 W. Camelback Road in Phoenix. The team’s complete schedule can be found at http://athletics.gcu.edu.