Just this past month a veteran player on the women’s volleyball team broke a Cabrini record during one of her matches. Stephanie Judkins, a junior on the women’s volleyball team, has been playing the sport since she was 5 years old and has been hooked on the game ever since. Judkins is one of the outside hitters for the volleyball team and planned on breaking the Danielle Carrozza record by achieving 1,144 career kills during a volleyball match on Saturday, Sept. 21st and helped win the match with her teammates.
Judkins was overjoyed when she had broken the record as she was trying to leave her mark here at Cabrini. Judkins said, “I just wanted to make an impact on the school and have that milestone because I did in high school as well. I was the first person at my high school to get over 1,000 kills so I wanted to break this record and keep it going.”
“Ever since I’ve known her, she’s a very hard worker and I know once she sets her goals then she wants to achieve it. Even like at the beginning of this season she knew how many kills she needed to break the record.” Kristen Bettermann, a senior, former volleyball player and manager for the women’s volleyball team said. Bettermann and a long-time friend of Judkins, she knew that her friend wanted to break this record.
Both Judkins and Bettermann have played together since Judkins’s freshman year in college and they have also played against each other in their early school years. Betterman knew how much of an overachiever Judkins was and had an idea that she wanted to break this record.
“ It is such an honor for her to break the kills record and I know that she would sacrifice the record for a championship. It is one of her goals and one that as a team we are trying to achieve.” Eric Schaefer, the coach for the women’s volleyball team, said.
Schaefer couldn’t be prouder of Judkins for achieving this goal. For three years Schaefer has been coaching Judkins on his team and he also coached Danielle Carrozza, the Cabrini alum volleyball player who set the record Judkins just broke.
“I would say for anyone playing volleyball or even any other sport, is just to get that drive and the want to be better and just push yourself to be better than the best person you can think of and just always be pushing yourself,” Judkins said to anyone wanting to play volleyball or another sport. And although Judkins is very happy about her current goal, she wants to continue even further, especially since she is only a junior so she will keep on pushing until the very end.
