Student-Athlete Feature Of The Month: Zac Epperson

CHASING DREAMS: FROM MILITARY TO THE MOON

Just about every little boy has big dreams of becoming a hero one day. Some little boys dream of flying commercial airplanes or military fighter jets. Others dream of being an astronaut and walking on the moon. And some, at one point or another, dream of being a soldier, fighting battles to protect their country.
Samford pole vaulter Zac Epperson is still dreaming those dreams.

The junior Birmingham native has his eyes set on all of those goals and is taking big steps to accomplish them while getting an exceptional education and competing in Division I athletics at Samford University.

As if he didn't already have enough on his plate with academics and athletics, the junior Mathematics major joined Samford's Air Force ROTC during his sophomore year of college. As a kid, he had always wanted to be in the military. It's a personal belief of Epperson's that one should serve time in the military for at least a little while. His dream had always been to be a fighter pilot in the Air Force, but one thing stood in his way - his eyesight.

Epperson had worn glasses for a while and knew that with them, his chances of being a fighter pilot would be slim to none. However, when he met with the admissions officer for Samford's AFROTC, they told him he could get his eyes fixed and still accomplish his dream.

Epperson joined up and now just a year and a half into the program, he has received one of the greatest honors a cadet could receive.

A few weeks ago, Epperson was accepted to participate in the Advanced Course in Engineering (ACE) Cyber Security Boot Camp, starting June 1. Ninety-nine cadets from across the country were hand-picked based on major, GPA (Epperson has a 3.19), and a ROTC qualities report done at boot camp. Out of those 99 cadets who fill out applications, 25 people were chosen including Epperson.

The program is a 10-week long camp in Rome, N.Y., in which cadets learn how to defend the nation's defense network. The cadets will learn how people hack into computers and how to stop that from happening. At the end of the course, the participants will be broken up into teams to play war games in which they will try to overtake the other teams' computer while defending their own.

Epperson also has been a part of a very successful vaulting group at Samford over the last three years. As a freshman, he won several vaults throughout the indoor and outdoor seasons and was an All-OVC honoree for his third place finishes in each of the conference meets. As a sophomore he continued his success, bettering his personal performances each week. Now, as the Bulldogs are bringing the 2010 indoor season to a close and are preparing for the outdoor season,

Epperson has contributed to one of the most successful men's vaulting seasons in recent history at Samford. The Samford men have dominated the event in every meet over the indoor season, sweeping the top three spots everywhere they go.

There is one thing that ties all of these things together for Epperson, one thing that is the link between academics, athletics and the military.
Discipline.

"I learned discipline with track before I ever learned it with military," Epperson said. "If you are a student-athlete, you've got to have all of your boxes checked and your ducks in a row when it comes to being focused because it's going to be hard if you don't."

Epperson says his plan after college is to get a pilot slot in the Air Force, become a fighter pilot, get a doctorate in Mathematics and use all of those things to get an astronaut candidate slot. Math is one of the few majors that is accepted for the slot and his hope is that with the doctorate and the fact that he can fly a very fast airplane, he can do what every little boy dreams of - go to outer space.

"It's the ultimate," Epperson said. "You can't go farther faster. And if I fall short, at least I tried. And, you know, someone's got to do it. It might as well be me."

Samford Student-Athlete Feature Of The Month:Andrea Seccafien

She may look quiet and unassuming, but Andrea Seccafien is a self-proclaimed feisty jock. The youngest and only girl of three children, the sophomore distance runner says she is the only one in her family who has excelled in sports.

As a freshman last year, Seccafien was one of Samford's top three runners, landing in the top ten of half of the Bulldogs' cross country meets last season. She capped off 2008 with a sixth-place finish at Samford's first appearance in the Southern Conference Championships, earning her the title of Freshman of the Year. She became the second Bulldog to win the rookie award in two years, as Hillary Neal won the award in the Ohio Valley Conference the previous year.

Winning the award came as no surprise to the Canadian-born distance specialist. "Starting out the season, it was my goal from the get-go," Seccafien said. "I wanted to just follow in Hillary Neal's footsteps. I knew that it would be a challenge, but I was determined."

Having raced most of her competition just two weeks prior to the conference meet in an event hosted by Furman, Seccafien knew what she was up against. In fact, she was out for revenge.

"We had raced Furman and they had a pretty good freshman and she beat me at their meet," Seccafien said. "So I was kind of worried, but I knew I could do better. We weren't favored to win at all, but we just put it together and came in second." Seccafien knows a thing or two about not being favored to win. In fact, her most memorable moment so far in her athletic career was in high school when she beat the odds to win an important race.

"Grade nine," Seccafien recalled. "It was the preliminary meet, so it was the qualifier for provincials. I was running the 3K, and I was not favored to win at all and I did. With probably three laps to go, I led, and it was like this gutsy move. I qualified for provincials for the first time which was really exciting, and I made a personal record. That was my first really good race."

Andrea Seccafien was named the SoCon's Freshman of the Year in 2008.
The Guelph, Ontario native's philosophy on beating the odds is to "just ignore statistics and just go out and do what you're supposed to do."

Seccafien likes a good challenge. She said that is what drew her into running.

"I like it because it is challenging and because it is not like every other sport," Seccafien said. "Sometimes, in whatever team sport, you can rely on your teammates, but in this you can't. It's all about yourself and you are just out there alone, really. It's an honest sport."

After being cut from the travel soccer team in seventh grade, Seccafien started running. She would run for half an hour every day. She ran elementary and high school track, and one day the city coach saw her potential and recruited her to run on the club team.

Word spread about Seccafien's talent to the Samford coaching staff through a friend who used to run with Seccafien. After a visit to Samford and a hard decision of choosing from the number of schools recruiting her, she chose to become a Bulldog.

After the initial culture shock of all things Southern, Seccafien settled back into her usual hobbies of going to concerts, writing and "fumbling around with the guitar."

Seccafien's dream is to work for the United Nations one day. An international relations major, she wants to go into law. She said she has always wanted to do something "worldly", and didn't even know there was such a major until she arrived at Samford. She said she kind of fell into the major by accident.

"I took an Into to Political Science course and [international relations] was one of the strands we looked at and I really liked it," Seccafien said. "We were reading Blood Diamond and I just really enjoyed what we were doing. I've always really enjoyed global issues and looking into things like that and that's kind of what I want to dedicate my life to."

Seccafien and the Samford women are off to a great start in this 2009 season. After leading her team to a win at the Memphis Twilight on Sept. 5 with her fourth place finish, Seccafien joins her teammates in preparing for the Southern Conference Championships on Oct. 31. Finishing second last year left a bad taste in the Bulldogs' mouths and the Samford women are thirsty for a victory this year.

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: Sheriden Stangohr

Just keep swinging

Sheriden Stangohr is one of the most undersized and underestimated middle blockers in the Southern Conference. Checking in at 5-feet 10 inches, Stangohr ranks in the top ten of half of the statistical categories in the league and even ranks in the top 40 nationally in one of those categories.

She comes in at sixth in hitting percentage, fourth in kills and second in blocks in the league statistical rankings and has been ranked No. 31 in the nation in aces per set for the past month. Last season, she was ranked 15th in the nation in blocks in September and finished her junior season ranked among the nation's 50 best blockers.

She ranks as the all-time four-year career hitter in Samford history with a career average of .300. She became the all-time leader in block assists on Sept. 18 versus Memphis in the Memphis Invitational and most recently, she notched 1,000 kills in her career at Chattanooga on Oct. 21. She is the second Bulldog in two years to accomplish this feat. She also ranks ninth on the career block solos list with 59.

Like her fellow classmates, Stangohr is a product of having a full sports resume as a child. Although her parents never played athletics, she was involved in every sport imaginable - soccer, softball, volleyball, basketball, track and even karate. Although, she claims her karate days were short-lived because, "Who wants to go in on Saturday?"

She narrowed the field down to three in high school - volleyball, basketball and softball - but after figuring out that basketball just wasn't her sport, she traded that in for club volleyball. She played softball until she was a sophomore in high school and soon began running track.

The variety of sports played by Stangohr is telling of why she is so good at what she does on the court. She is faster, jumps higher and sees plays better than most middle blockers she faces on a weekly basis.

While most people were signing letters of intent their junior year of high school, Stangohr said she really had not had too many offers. The one that sticks out in her mind was Washburn, a liberal arts college in Topeka, Kan. However, Stangohr was not sold. For starters, it was in Kansas.

"It's cold there," said the Shawnee, Kan., native. "And it's Kansas!"

After living there all of her life, Stangohr was ready to see another part of the world - preferably a warmer part of the world.

Soon Stangohr was contacted by Michelle Durban, Samford's head coach at the time. She took a visit, really liked what she saw in Birmingham and realized that Samford was the only school that she really wanted to go to.

"The campus was pretty, it was far away and it was warm here," Stangohr said, checking off her must-have list. "The team was also really nice and welcoming." Check.

Stangohr came to Samford with the hope to really make a difference and turn the Bulldog program around. What she didn't know was that she would be part of a class that laid the foundation for a successful future for Samford volleyball.

In her freshman season, the Bulldogs only won six matches. However, as a sophomore, she helped lead her team to the first winning season in program history. As a junior, she played a part in capturing Samford volleyball's first-ever league division title and led the Bulldogs to post-season play for the first time since 2001.

There is an attitude that Stangohr acquired as a Bulldog that helped her be a part of Samford's success.

"Just keep swinging," Stangohr said. "Just keep going. Even when you are messing up, you are bound to hit one in bounds. You just have to think of it that way. And if you don't think of it that way, and you keep thinking about the error you just made, it's just going to make it so much worse. And it's really hard to get out of that."

She also said that she used to get scared and nervous before matches. Now she just remembers that she has a whole team backing her up.

Stangohr said that the thing she loves and will miss most about Samford is the built-in friendships that come with being on a team.

"Since I've been here, my best friends have come from the team," Stangohr said. "And I see them everywhere. And I don't get sick of them. I could see them 20 times a day and I wouldn't get sick of them. It's nice when you have seven new freshmen come in because, there you go, you have seven new best friends. So, you're guaranteed 14 best friends forever and you get more every year. I think that's really cool."

She will graduate in May with a bachelor's degree in marine science. In five years, Stangohr said she hopes to be living somewhere warm, working at an aquarium.

"I'd just be happy if I really just worked in an aquarium for my entire life," Stangohr said. "I feel like I go to places like that and I just know that that's what I'm supposed to be doing."

For now, Stangohr will savor the moments and continue to work hard. She'll be grateful for the wins and appreciate the lessons that come from losses, but the work is not over until that trophy is given away. And Stangohr and the rest of the Bulldog squad want to be holding that trophy when all is said and done.

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: Katie Luckman

"Everyone has a role, whether it is on the court or off."

No one approaches the game of volleyball with a team-first mentality more than senior outside hitter Katie Luckman.

"Sometimes a right side, sometimes a left, and sometimes a defensive specialist, Katie always puts 100 percent of herself into whatever could help the team," Samford head coach Derek Schroeder said.

Although her time on the court has tapered off a bit in the last couple of years, Luckman still remains one of the most intense and vocal leaders on the team.

"I'm pretty vocal," said the Villa Hills, Ky., native. "I see the game pretty well and I understand what's going on. I want everyone else to feel the way I feel about it. Feel that passion and adrenaline that I do. Everyone has a role, whether it is on or off the court."

Luckman, much like fellow senior Sarah Gardner, had a family connection to former Samford head volleyball coach Michelle Durban. Luckman' sister played high school volleyball with Durban. A chance reunion at a tournament in Orlando gave Durban her first look at Luckman. The Samford coach was impressed and began the recruiting process. Eventually, Luckman visited Samford and was immediately offered a spot on the team.

"We took some time to think about it, but if just felt too right to say no," Luckman said. "They had everything I wanted."

Luckman was an immediate contributor to the Bulldog dynamic as a freshman. She saw action in 29 out of 30 matches that year and recorded her first double-double in Samford's first home match of the season against now conference rival Chattanooga. She even stepped in as setter for one set against Kennesaw State when Jackie Jaszcz was sidelined by a knee injury.

However, probably her most defining moment came in the last set of the last match of her sophomore season. It also stands out as her most memorable moment here at Samford.

It was Samford's final season in the Ohio Valley Conference and the Bulldogs were closing out play at home on opening weekend of the Pete Hanna Center. It had been Samford's best season yet; the first winning season in the history of the program. The Bulldogs had just beaten Eastern Kentucky for the first time ever the night before and now stood one point away from sweeping Morehead State, who was ranked second in the conference.

In a match that saw the Bulldogs win the first set, 30-25, and then the second set by a score of 37-35, Samford had trailed the Eagles the whole third set. When the Bulldogs tied the score at 30 on a kill by Sheriden Stangohr, the excitement of the crowd increased immensely. Samford took its first lead of the set on another kill by Stangohr before Luckman stepped behind the line to serve for match point.

"I remember serving the last ball into the sunbeam shining down from the windows in the fitness room of Pete Hanna," Luckman said. "I served it right in the middle of the court because the sun was right there and was like, `She's not going to be able to pass this.' And she missed it! I remember being like, `We just won!'"

Since then, shades have been installed in the windows of the fitness center.

Luckman will graduate in 2012 with a doctor of pharmacy degree. She had been told all her life that she could not let her mind be wasted because she was so good at sciences. Her mother wanted her to be a doctor, but there was just one problem.

"Well, I don't get along really well with blood," Luckman said. "I hate it. It makes me pretty squeamish."

Still, science has always come pretty easily to Luckman, especially chemistry. But her favorite part of pharmacy isn't the science. It is the connections that she is able to make with patients.
"I just really like shooting the breeze with people," Luckman said.

Luckman is a people person. Her bright personality is just one thing that makes her uniquely Katie Luckman. She is also very focused and intense.

"Whatever I do, I want to do right," Luckman said. "I would hope that people would see that as something that is uniquely me."

That approach is a solid step in the right direction on the road to a successful life.

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: Sarah Gardner

Her path to Samford wasn't a straight one

Senior volleyball player Sarah Gardner has played sports all of her life. From fourth grade on, the Indianapolis, Indiana native played just about every sport a kid could play.

"I played soccer, softball, basketball, volleyball, kickball," Gardner said. "I played everything."

She finally narrowed it down to soccer and volleyball before choosing the latter over the former in high school since the two sports share the same season in Indiana. She continued playing club volleyball for Circle City as she had been since age 12 while also playing on her high school varsity team all four years of her high school career.

However, playing college volleyball almost didn't become a reality for Gardner. She committed to Butler University early on in her senior year of high school.

"I kind of just got sick of the recruiting process and decided to just stay close to home," Gardner said. "My dad works at Butler, we live two blocks away and it was the comfortable decision to make at the time."

Soon after, the 5-foot-8-inch defensive specialist found out that she had a fracture in her foot. She made the decision to continue playing on it, helping Bishop Chatard High School to its first-ever Indiana State Championship. She played in the Indiana All-Star match and landed a spot on her choice club team, but soon was put in a boot per doctor's orders. She made the hard decision to quit her club team as sitting out with a broken foot would have just been money wasted.

"I started to kind of experience stuff outside of volleyball," Gardner said. "It was the first time that I hadn't been playing since I was 12 years old. I was having so much fun and I was like, `You know, maybe there is more to life than just volleyball.'"

She went to her coaches at Butler and told them that she had decided that she wasn't going to play in college after all. But after just one semester at Butler, Gardner started to miss volleyball. When she would attend her brother's and sisters' athletic events, she wouldn't feel like part of the family anymore - separated athletically.

She had a connection to Samford's head volleyball coach at the time, Michelle Durban. Durban had been an assistant at Butler in recent years and had a great relationship with the Gardner family. Because Gardner had been recruited a year earlier by Durban, she gave Samford a second look and called to ask the Samford coach if she still had room on her team.

"I called her and told her that I really missed volleyball and wanted to start playing again and asked if she thought she had a spot for me on the team," Gardner said. "She told me she did. So within two weeks, I had filed all the paperwork for Butler that I was withdrawing and filled out all of the paperwork for Samford and written all of my essays and it was just like that - I'm going to Samford."

Gardner enrolled in Samford's 2006 Jan Term, practiced with the team in the spring and jumped feet first into Samford's 2006 fall season. She played in all 30 matches for the Bulldogs, even stepping in as libero midseason. She proved herself as one of Samford's power servers and led her team in aces (55) and digs (412) as a red-shirt freshman.

That year, she recorded the school's second highest single-season digs total (412), just missing the all-time record by four digs. Her most outstanding match came in her freshman season as well, as she recorded a career-high 29 digs against South Alabama in its own Jaguar Classic, just missing another school record by nine digs.

She continued to excel in the next years to come, helping the Bulldogs to their first-ever winning season as a sophomore and their first-ever conference division title as a junior. She led her team in aces again in her sophomore year with 45 while finishing her junior season ranked eighth in the nation in aces per set. She landed herself sixth on the single-season digs leader board with a total of 65 in 2008, which put her second in the conference, and currently ranks sixth on the all-time aces list with 162 in her career.

There is no doubt that Gardner's competitiveness helped her achieve such success here at Samford. Competitiveness is in Gardner's blood line.

Her dad played basketball and golf at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Her mom was a cheerleader and played softball at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Every single one of her siblings plays a sport - both younger sisters play college basketball, one at Davidson College and the other at the University of Indianapolis. From board games - their favorite is Scattergories - to basketball, it's all a competition for the Gardners. They even hold true to a holiday tradition.

"We are the most competitive family you will ever meet in your life," Gardner said, the oldest of five children. "On Christmas morning, we wake up, we open our presents, we eat and then - because my mom was a gym teacher and was the athletic director for our grade school (St. Thomas Aquinas), she has the keys to the gym and then my dad, because of his position at Butler, he has the keys to that gym - we go to St. Thomas and play dodge ball for like two hours and then we go to Butler and play basketball."

Gardner says her dad always wins but she's glad that her parents brought her up in such a competitive household.

"Some people have tried to knock my parents and said that they brought us up wrong, having us focus on sports so much," Gardner said. "But...sports teach you so much. I know how to be a team player. I had to learn how to balance work and volleyball and school my whole life. I feel like I've learned so much from sports and I attribute that 100 percent to my parents."

Gardner says that she is going to miss her team the most when her time at Samford has come to an end. From making lifelong friends to winning championships, she has gained a lot in her four years here. She has learned to appreciate the wins of the last three years after enduring a hard season of only six wins her freshman season. From watching her sister endure four ACL surgeries to watching teammates battle injuries, season in and season out, she has also learned to appreciate her health and the ability to play virtually injury-free over the last four years.

Gardner is not exactly sure what she wants to be doing once she graduates. She has aspirations of doing a lot of things from being a CEO to the next Erin Andrews of ESPN. But there is one thing that she is sure of:

"I want to find a job that I really enjoy and that I'm good at," Gardner says, "and I want to throw my whole life into it. I really want to prove to my family and prove to everyone that I can be on my own and really succeed."

Student-Athlete Feature Of The Month:Casey Garvey and Alexis Bauer

Rivals Turned Teammates

Freshman volleyball players Casey Garvey and Alexis Bauer have played together for most of their lives. They've just been on opposite sides of the net.

Before Bauer landed the job of Samford's starting libero, she was an All-American setter out of Louisville, Ky. While playing with the Kentucky Indiana Volleyball Academy (KIVA), she helped her team to three gold medals and three silver medals at the AAU Nationals and two gold medals and one silver medal at the Junior Olympics. As a senior at Sacred Heart High School, she helped her team earn a No. 16 national ranking.

Back-up setter Garvey played for the MidAmerica Volleyball Association (MAVA) for six years, her teams never finishing lower than third at AAU Nationals and fifth at the Junior Olympics. She also was an AAU All-American for three consecutive years.

A commonality that ties the two together, besides being All-American setters, is that they both were coached by members of the Garvey family.

Garvey's brother Todd coached her high school team at Mercy Academy while her other brother Eric coached Bauer's high school team at Sacred Heart. The Garvey brothers, along with their father Ken, are well-known in Louisville for their success in coaching youth volleyball.

Mercy and Sacred Heart just happened to be rivals as did Garvey's and Bauer's club teams.

"We go back from like 12s," Bauer said. "We've always been across the net from each other since I can remember. Every single one of our huge tournaments always ended up with two Louisville teams in the finals - and it was always her and me."

Although on the court it may have looked like a setter's dual was shaping up, the duo said they never saw each other as enemies off the court. They barely even knew each other personally.

"We've been rivals since we were 11," Garvey said. "We knew who each other were but we never hung out or anything.

"I was more vocal than she was so I was more of the bully at the net," Garvey said. "She's just really quiet and internally aggressive, whereas I've always been more vocal. But we've always had a good rivalry."

When they found out that they would be coming to the same college, playing on the same team, both were a little anxious to see how their puzzle pieces would fit together in the grand scheme of Samford volleyball.

It worked out that Samford would be looking for a new starter at the libero position. Bauer went up against two upperclassmen and won the role leading the Bulldogs' back row defense. Garvey would help starting setter Hillary Fountain run the offense.

The two freshmen turned out to be just half of the production that came out of the 2009 class of newcomers. Four of the team's seven freshmen saw significant playing time, earning starting positions for the majority of the season.

Bauer led the Bulldogs in digs in her freshman year, notching 403 (3.50 digs per set). She finished just nine shy of tying Sarah Gardner (2006) for fourth place on the single-season digs list and 13 away from tying Courtney Gay (2008) and Brook Skinner (1994) for second place.
Garvey racked up 270 assists on the year (2.35 per set) while also grabbing 181 digs (1.57 per set). She also led in service aces with 37 on the year, ranking her eighth in the Southern Conference in that category.

Most freshmen usually come in not expecting so see a lot of playing time. That was not the case with the 2009 class.

"A lot of people come in as freshmen and they plan to see the bench," Bauer said, "especially in a bigger program or in a year when you are not rebuilding. But that didn't really happen here. I would hate that. I love contributing."

The duo came in and helped their team to its second most successful year in the history of Samford volleyball. With the help of fellow classmates and upperclassmen and guided by second year head coach Derek Schroeder, the Bulldogs posted a string of 22 consecutive wins in the Pete Hanna Center since it opened in 2007. They also earned their second consecutive North Division title in their second year in the Southern Conference and made it to their second year of post-season play since 2001.

Samford reached the four-team Southern Conference Tournament last weekend as the No. 1 seed in the North for the second year in a row. The Bulldogs ended their season after a tough loss to College of Charleston in the semifinal round.

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: Kylie Harmon

Hard works always pays off

Unlike many student-athletes, Samford didn't find Kylie Harmon. Kylie Harmon found Samford.

Harmon was first introduced to Samford during high school. While playing volleyball for St. James High School in Matthews, Ala., Harmon's team would play in the volleyball tournament that is hosted by Samford's neighbor, Homewood High School, every fall.

"We would come up here and go to the tournament and we'd always just drive around the Samford campus before leaving," Harmon said. "Ever since then, because it's a gorgeous campus, I just fell in love with it."

Harmon played basketball, volleyball and softball throughout her grade school years. She decided to drop basketball her senior year and soon decided that she would like to play softball at the next level. She officially visited Samford over Spring Break during her senior year, but athletics was not part of her tour.

Harmon walked onto the Samford softball team her freshman year after she contacted head coach Beanie Ketcham over the summer. Ketcham sent Harmon the team's workout. She did the workout, came campus in good shape and passed the ever-daunting fitness test. Ketcham decided to give Harmon a try and at the end of her freshman year, the infielder had earned a scholarship.

"I've always been a firm believer that hard work always pays off," Harmon said. "I've always believed that. And Beanie, I feel like, is the same way. If you work hard, you know, she's going to give you that look. It's been such an honor to be able to put on that Samford jersey every year."

Three years later, Harmon is able to share that honor with her younger sister, Robyn. Kylie Harmon has been able to show her sister the ropes of collegiate softball as well as back her up when she in the pitcher's circle and play alongside her when she is in the outfield.

"I couldn't think of a better way to go out than being able to play with Robyn," Harmon said. "It's almost like a Cinderella ending."

According to Ketcham, Harmon is the ultimate Bulldog. Her work ethic and attention to detail are unparalleled. She leads by example on and off the field.

"I've always been of the opinion that actions speak louder than words," Harmon said. "It's one thing to be able to talk it, but if you can walk it, that says a lot more. I definitely think that I am a leader by example. I may not necessarily be the best player on the team, but I think being able to work hard and give that effort...there are just no excuses not to do that."

Harmon has faced a few obstacles this year that she could have used as excuses to not give her all and not lead by example. However, she has chosen to rise above them and use them as fuel to spur her on.

She has played the past month with a broken finger on her throwing hand and earlier this season, she and her sister, along with their family, were devastated by the death of her brother.
After a short break from playing, the Harmon sisters made the decision to return to the field. They were received with open arms by their "other family" - a loving and supportive family of three coaches and 14 fellow teammates.

"I'm going to be honest with you," Harmon said. "We could not have made it this far without the team. I cannot tell you the countless number of text messages, calls and hugs that we've gotten over the past months now that have just made the days go by better. We were dreading coming back, but at the same time, we knew we were coming back to our other family."

Both Kylie and Robyn Harmon have returned as two of the most impactful players on the team as of late. Harmon is second on the team in hitting going into the Southern Conference Tournament with a .370 batting average. She leads the team in stolen bases and is just one away from tying fellow senior Jessica Owens' record of 20 stolen bases in a season.

Harmon has also excelled in the classroom as she was named a 2007-08 NFCA Scholar-Athlete at the beginning of this season. She is a five-time Dean's List member and has posted a 4.0 grade-point average three times. She was named to the OVC's Commissioner's Honor Roll her first three years, and was named to Samford's Highest Honors Club in Spring 2007 and Spring 2008.

Harmon was inducted into the Chi Alpha Sigma College Athlete Honor Society last spring, and she was the athletic department's nominee for the NCAA's Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship this year. She recently received a post-graduate scholarship from the Southern Conference called the Camp Champs Scholarship.

Upon graduation, Harmon hopes to go to veterinary school at Auburn University and one day open up her own small animal veterinary practice with her younger sister, Robyn.

When asked what the one thing is that she will miss about playing softball, Harmon said:
"Just the camaraderie of the team. We are a very, very tight-knit team. Being able to see all the girls every day and just being able to step across those lines and work towards a goal together. That's why I love team sports because it's a group of different people, working together for something. It's great to be part of something so big."

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: Kristy Lawrence

Number 19. They call her "Aussie" when she comes up to bat. Why? Well, that is exactly where she hails from.

Kristy Lawrence grew up in Sydney, Australia, following her brother around while playing soccer and this little known sport called softball. Around the age of nine, Lawrence started playing softball and that is what led her here to the States.

"I wanted to come play and get a degree," Lawrence said. "There are actually a lot of Australian girls coming over here to play now."

Through connections in Australia, Lawrence was introduced to Rome McNary, who coached at Western Texas Community College. After playing there for two years, Lawrence's name was mentioned to Samford head coach Beanie Ketcham, and the rest was history.

Moving halfway across the world was an interesting experience for Lawrence. Although moving away from home to go to college is usually an opportunity for a person to gain independence, Lawrence realized that she would have to become almost completely reliant on her friends for everything.

"I didn't have a car, so I was always asking people to take me places," Lawrence said. "I couldn't really do anything in my time. I had to plan everything else out."

When asked what her favorite thing about being in the United States was, Lawrence responded with:

"Friends. I love them all."

Because she doesn't get back to Australia very often - only a few weeks for Christmas and in the summer - her friends have become her family away from home.

Speaking of family, Lawrence says that her older brother has had one of the most significant impacts on her life as an athlete. She started playing soccer at the age of four, just because her brother did.

"I followed him around everywhere," Lawrence said. "I went to all of his soccer practices. Everything he did, I wanted to do."


She emulated his competitive fire, something every athlete needs to become who they want to be.

While maintaining a competitive spirit, Lawrence has also kept a laid-back approach to the way she plays sports.

"I just try to tell [the younger players] to think more about the task at hand than the previous things that have happened," Lawrence said about her approach to the game. "It's just another day, and it's not that big of a deal. That kind of keeps things in perspective. Usually, the simpler it is, the easier it is. If I start complicating things, then it's just going to be harder. If I'm relaxed and keep it simple, that's when I do my best."


This approach seems to have helped Lawrence as she has had a breakout season in her senior year as a Bulldog. She, along with the other two seniors, not only leads her team through seniority. The trio leads the Bulldogs in hitting. Lawrence sports a .305 batting average, which is fourth on the team behind fellow seniors Jessica Owens and Kylie Harmon and freshman Robyn Harmon.

She also leads her team in hits (39) and is second in RBI (22). She has knocked out four home runs so far this season, bringing her career total to seven and has settled in nicely as the starter at first base, posting 345 putouts on the season.

Upon graduation next May, the exercise science major hopes to return home to Australia to pursue a career in the medical field.

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: Jessica Owens

"These are friendships that I know I will have for the rest of my life"

Samford senior Jessica Owens was a three-sport athlete when she was growing up. In middle school, she played volleyball, basketball and softball before dropping volleyball when she started high school at Ft. Walton Beach High.

When she moved to Florida in eighth grade, basketball was the first sport she played in her new setting. The sport helped her develop friendships and she eventually went on to the State Final Four three years in a row with her team. However, Owens says that softball has always been her first love.

"Softball is totally my first love," Owens said. "Making the decision to play just softball in college really wasn't that hard. I'd always wanted to play Division I softball. I finally, for once, was going to be able to focus on one sport."

Her love for the sport definitely shows, especially in her success on the field. Owens will leave Samford one of the most successful players to ever have played for the Bulldog program.

Going into the Southern Conference Tournament this week, Owens ranks in the top 10 of five of Samford's 11 career batting records lists. She is the all-time leader in runs, scoring her 100th run against Mercer on April 30. She is the all-time leader in stolen bases (58) while ranking second in hits (81, only trailing the leader by two) and batting average (.317, only three one-thousandths off the lead). She ranks 10th in at-bats with 571 in her career, and in 2007, she tied the school record with 19 stolen bases. She then broke that record in 2008 with 20.

Over her career, she has received many honors for her work on the field. Prior to this season, as Samford moved into the Southern Conference, Owens was named first team Preseason All-Conference. Last season, in the breakout season of her career, she led her team in hitting and was named to the Ohio Valley Conference First Team. The season before, she was named to the OVC All-Tournament team after batting .455 in the three-day tournament.

Halfway through her senior year, Owens encountered an obstacle that she had never had to face before. A broken hand resulted in her being benched for four weeks. "I've never been hurt," Owens said. "I seriously can't think of a time when I sat on the bench...so to sit the bench for the first time in my whole career was really hard. I think the hardest thing for me was making sure that I still stayed up because, to be honest, every time that I step on the field and I can't play, it eats me up." While injured, Owens found herself in a position where she had to take on a new and different role for a while.

"I just had to be vocal and be a positive person for my teammates," Owens said. "I had to encourage them to get it done and get excited when the team did things well. I had to push everything back and still enjoy being out there and watching my teammate fight for what they want because it's what I want. I just had to trust that there is a blessing out of this and stay positive."

Upon returning to the field on April 23 against cross-town rival UAB, Owens went 1-for-2 as the Bulldogs' designated player in a 3-1 win over the Blazers. Since then, she has had a hit in five of the last seven contests including a multiple-hit outing against UAB on May 2.

Upon graduation later this month, Owens will look towards getting a master's degree in Kinesiology. She hopes to get into the coaching field, following in the footsteps of her father.

"I think I'm just one of those players that isn't ready to be done," Owens said. "I just love the game a lot. I've always been around it and I can't see myself not being around it. Maybe it runs in my blood."

Owens' father is the head football coach and athletic director at Ft. Walton Beach High School. This December, as her team was celebrating the end of the first semester of school at a holiday party, she was keeping tabs on her father's football team which was in the state playoffs back home.

"My relationship with my dad is amazing," Owens said. "He definitely helped place that competitiveness in me. He gives me a really good perspective when I play from the coaching side of it...and he's been huge in shaping who I am."

Owens says that the thing she will miss most about her team will be all the time they spend together. Through traveling and playing, there are so many memories that are made that stick with a player forever as well as the bond that comes with compete with a group of people who are fighting towards the same goal.

"These are friendships that I know I will have for the rest of my life."