When junior middle blocker Angela Morley stepped behind the service line with the score 29-24 Saturday night against Indiana at Jenison Field House, fellow Spartan volleyball player senior outside hitter Erin Hartley took a look around.
And she didn’t look specifically at anything, she looked at what would soon be just a memory.
“There were certain times out on the court, like when it was 29-24, when I said to myself, ‘this is the last point before I’m done here,’” Hartley said. “And I looked around, and I tried to take in everything around me because I knew that this was going to be it.”
And fittingly, Hartley ended her conference career and her career at Jenison with a kill on the play, something she’s done 1,484 times before.
In the final game of a 3-1 match win Saturday, Hartley gave everyone in the stands, on the benches and on the court something to take in - a dominating nine-kill performance in her final game at Jenison. She finished the match with 21 kills to lead every player on the floor.
“Her last game at Jenison was just incredible and I just really wanted her to finish strong and go out with kind of a bang,” sophomore setter Nikki Colson said. “With that last kill, I think she did that - I just really wanted to make it a point to get her the ball, because that was something she’ll always remember.”
But the memories weren’t always this sweet for her.
Hartley has toiled for the Spartans for the past four seasons, and until this year, had struggled to become consistent, head coach Chuck Erbe said.
“She has excellent volleyball skills, and she’s had those for quite some time,” he said. “But now, she is mentally and emotionally a much more mature player.
“Erin has finally reached a level of consistency that is commensurate with her physical talent.”
And her talent shows in her legacy. Hartley will enter Friday’s tournament match with Notre Dame with the fifth-highest number of kills in the school’s history, eighth-place in digs and the seventh-highest tally of total blocks.
But the numbers don’t say enough about her metamorphosis.
“She has been able to be a consistent player throughout the season, and that’s the biggest change in Erin,” Erbe said. “She really struggled her freshman year, and her sophomore year was tough.
“And she’d have some really good matches as a junior, but then she’d have some really down matches too.”
But Erbe said Hartley has excelled this season, and she is the only senior playing.
“This year, with a different cast around her, she has become our go-to player. And she has accepted that role,” he said. “I think that was hard for her before, to be in that primary role. But this year she really has embraced it and made it work for her.”
And it’s worked for the team too, as she led the Spartans to a 20-7 mark and a 13-7 record in the Big Ten.
“That’s what you hope to see in a senior - that type of on-court leadership Erin has given us all year,” Erbe said.
And the younger Spartans have taken notice and have used Hartley’s play and leadership as a model for excellence.
“Erin’s play definitely sets an example and sets the tone for the rest of us,” Colson said. “I think she has definitely been filling the role of a captain on the floor.
“Even though she doesn’t have the title of captain, I look at her like she is one because she has stepped up so much vocally, physically and mentally.”
And it’s been Hartley’s pleasure to do it for a team she feels very strongly about and believes in.
“To play with them in my last game in Jenison and to get this last kill - it’s just amazing because I wouldn’t want to share it with anyone else,” she said. “This is a season I’ve always dreamed of having and this is the team I’ve always dreamed of being on.”
But with the dream drawing to a close, Hartley sat inside the Spartans locker room following her final home match and took one more glance at her team.
“When I got into the locker room and I was sitting there, everything was really calm,” she said. “And I looked around the room, and I felt like I was taking everything in one last time.
“We’ve all come along way.”
