Living her Division I dream (11/14/05)

CINCINNATI — There’s not a huge market for 5-foot-6-inch volleyball players in Division I.

There were only two such players on the court Friday night, one on each team. One of them was Joscie Kaup, and boy is she grateful to have had the opportunity.

“Somebody was looking over me the day (Syracuse coach Jing Pu) watched my volleyball tape because I just sent him a tape and he called me,” said the Fort Recovery graduate, saying it was a dream come true to be playing in Division I. “I got really lucky, and thank God I did because it’s a great opportunity and I’ve had fun ever since.”

Kaup was an all-around talent while playing for the Indians, not concentrating on any one part of her game. She was a setter, attacker and defensive specialist, excelling in all areas of the game.

But because of her lack of height, only a few Division I schools — Notre Dame and Syracuse were among them — showed an interest.

So, after nearly two seasons, is Pu happy he went after a player not many others were giving a chance?

“Oh yes,” said the native of China who is in his 11th year coaching the Orange. “Joscie even in high school, club season, I identified her ball control abilities and natural speed. It was obvious she was able to compete at a level where she’d be able to help. She’s proven herself.

“(In her) first game as a freshman she stepped on the court and secured her starting position and contributed every game since then.”

Kaup showed those skills yet again as about 30 fans made the two-hour drive from Fort Recovery to see her and the Syracuse team play at the University of Cincinnati Friday night, totaling a couple of career-high marks in a match with huge Big East implications.

She wasted little time in giving her fan base something to cheer about, coming up with a tremendous dig on the opening point of the match as the Orange rolled out to a 10-5 lead. However, with third place in the 15-team Big East on the line, Cincinnati roared back to take the opening game.

Syracuse dropped that opener despite eight digs from Kaup — her per-game average is 4.08 — but she never slowed down.

Kaup served the final point of game two, inducing an errant pass as the ball never came back over the net, and finished with seven digs. She added another five digs in the third game, and served the final four points to help put the Orange up two games to one.

And with the match on the line she was at her best.

Syracuse trailed 26-24 in game four, but Kaup came up with three huge digs on the next point as the Orange pulled to within one. The Bearcats still pushed to a 28-25 lead, but Syracuse scored six of the final seven points for the 30-32, 30-27, 30-27, 31-29 victory.

“It’s very exciting to be back in Ohio,” Kaup said after the victory. “I’ve been looking forward to it all season, and I knew a lot of people were going to come. It just makes me happy that a lot of people would come and appreciate that I was close to home.”

Among the crowd was Brian Hupka, who won the award for longest distance traveled. A student at the International School in Hong Kong, he flew in to see his cousin play at Cincinnati.

There was plenty Hupka and the rest of the group, which included family, friends and former teammates and classmates, to appreciate as Kaup keyed the game-four win with a ridiculous 13 digs.

Her huge final game gave her 33 digs for the match, easily a career high. Her previous best was 29 against Army last season in a five-game match, and her best for a four-game match was 25 this year versus Connecticut.

For good measure, she added a career-best five assists as well.

Pu said he had no doubt Kaup could make this kind of impact for his team, which set a school record with its 11th Big East win.

“I tell you the truth, at the high school senior level her ball control abilities were at the very, very peak,” Pu said. “We spent a lot of time on ball control, but she already came in with very good fundamentals.”

Kaup’s effect on the team was immediate as she started from the get-go and was the only player on the team to appear in every game last year. She has started almost every match this season, missing just one because of an eye injury which has her wearing protective glasses for the remainder of the campaign.

Through almost two full seasons she is currently the best defensive player in school history. She is averaging 3.87 digs per game for her career, four hundredths better than previous leader Rachel Watson. Only one other Syracuse player has averaged as many as three digs per game.

Kaup tied 2003 graduate Christen Casey for fourth on the all-time single-season digs list with 457 in her freshman season. She already has 486 this year with at least one more match guaranteed in the Big East tournament, and could make a run at Watson’s single-season record of 567 set in 1999.

She already has 943 career digs, which is more than halfway to Watson’s career digs record of 1,791.

But Kaup, who was clearly the team’s emotional leader as she cheered and encouraged during the four-game win over the Bearcats, doesn’t have individual accolades on her mind. Instead when asked what her goals are for the next two-plus seasons only the team came to mind.

“We’ve just got to work though the Big East tournament this weekend ...,” she said as her team will play Pittsburgh Friday at 3:30 p.m. and the tournament hosted by Louisville. “(Next year) we lose a lot of seniors ... We’re going to have to build a new program, but I love my class. They’ve been working hard and I know some of them haven’t gotten the playing experience that I have, but they can step in. They can make a difference. The seniors have set good examples and we want to follow them.”[[In-content Ad]]