Senior outside hitter Laura Baetzel has grown from a freshman on the volleyball team to one of only two seniors. More importantly, she has grown into one of the team leaders.

Averaging 3.31 kills per game, Baetzel has established herself as a presence at the net. Earlier this season, she showed what she was capable of, reaching a career-high 26 kills in a match against DePaul. She recently took some time before practice to catch up with the Northern Star and discuss road trips, pranks and nicknames.

Northern Star: You’ve gone on a lot of trips with the volleyball team. Which one has been your favorite.

Laura Baetzel: I’m going to have to say Texas – Corpus Christi was my favorite. Where we were was beautiful.

NS: Did you get a chance to do much down there, or was it all business?

LB: We didn’t get to do much besides volleyball but we played some really cool teams. Like ones from California [San Diego State] and from Texas [Corpus Christi] and they were pretty good so it was good competition. Plus it was at a nice place on the beach.

NS: How would you describe the team chemistry this season?

LB: We get a long very well. We’re always joking around and having fun on the court. There’s still a few things that need to click volleyball-wise, but other than that we’re really tight.

NS: Are there any pranksters on the team?

LB: Actually yeah. Me and Dani [D’Ambrose], Irene [Johnson] and Mandi [Caputo] are always pulling pranks on each other.

NS: What’s been the best one so far?

LB: It’s really just a lot of little ones, nothing huge. Every year we do the freshman jersey thing. On a game-day when we’re away, we take one of their jerseys so they kind of freak out. We give them back before the game though, of course.

NS: You’re the oldest player on the team, you should know better than that! How does it make you feel being the oldest, anyway?

LB: Old (laughs). You kind of take on the role of being responsible for all the girls on the team. Making sure that everything is done and everybody is OK.

NS: Any good nicknames on the team this year?

LB: We call Jody (Hardwick) “Jiggy”. It came from a really intense practice one day and one of the girls meant to say “good digging Jody” and it kind of came out Jiggy somehow. So that’s kind of what we call her sometimes now. She’s probably going to kill me for telling that.

NS: Coach Ray Gooden recently had a daughter. Has that changed him at all?

LB: You know what, it has. He’s a little bit more mellow. He always comes in and is really focused though. That hasn’t changed.