Senior and third-year captain Madison Whitehead hit her 1,000th career kill during the Volleyball team’s first day of action last week at a tournament match at Ferris State.

“It was an awesome accomplishment, and to have everyone supporting me felt good,” Whitehead said.

Whitehead attributes her success on the court to her team’s ability to work together. Support from the team does not stop off the court, she added. As a biology major with an emphasis in physiology, academics have always been stressed during her athletic career as well. Whitehead said that the team and her love for volleyball motivated her when it came to studying and completing homework.

“If I wasn’t an athlete and wasn’t surrounded by all these people, I would just be like ‘oh I don’t want to do this right now,’ but being an athlete, I have to, I have to get this stuff done before we travel on the weekend,” she said.

Whitehead led the team last year with 383 kills. She was the only player with over 300 kills, averaging about three per set. She was also named to the 2016 Mizuno Midwest Region Volleyball Crossover all-tournament team after posting 49 kills with an average of 3.77 per set and a 0.479 hitting percentage.

Whitehead is now looking to the future as she faces her last year of being a college athlete and student by filling out applications for medical school and working with her team to improve their season. 

“Volleyball-wise, I want to go as far as we can in continuing to compete throughout the whole season, and school-wise just get as much out of it  as I can before moving on to the real world,” she said.

Volleyball coach Mike Lozier praised Whitehead and the team for a strong start to the season.

“Volleyball is a very unique sport where no one individual can just take it over because you have to touch it more than one time on your side of the net and you can’t touch it twice in a row,” Lozier said.