When Kara Reis ’13 took to the floor on Sunday, most people in attendance knew that she was going to break the all time digs record. After all, following yet another solid game the day before, in which she registered 22 digs to tie the record, Reis needed just one more dig to have the record all to her own.
No suspense-filled game, climactic Hollywood ending , or Goliathan effort was required. Just one dig was it.
With only three points tallied in the first set, the moment came. Before anyone could react, Reis became the all-time record holder, getting a dig that didn’t look any more special than the first 1,674, but it was just as important to the team as every single one preceding it.
Reis finished Sunday with 1,696 digs for her career, notching yet another 20 dig performance in her illustrious Fairfield career. The senior is also the all-time leader in digs per set, averaging 4.07 throughout her first three years, and has only improved this season.
“I never really thought I’d be able to do it, I didn’t make it a goal of mine,” said Reis after the game. “My goal was to win the MAAC Championship in my four years, so if that means this happens in the process … then that’s all I care about.”
The record solidifies Reis’s mark on Fairfield as one of the greatest players in the history of the program – something that her teammates appreciate almost more than Reis herself.
“This means a lot because I know how hard she’s worked over the past four years, everyday,” said fellow senior and housemate Stephanie Cruz. “I knew she was going to get it.”
Head coach Alija Pittenger, who recruited Reis to come all the way from San Diego to play for Fairfield, was happy to see a player like Reis break the record, attributing her success to the time Kara puts in during practice.
“It’s really great for her. She’s one of those kids who shows up every day at practice, and really works hard, tries to get better,” said Pittenger.
What makes the record breaking performance oddly unique is that it may not be the most talked about part of the weekend for the Stags, or even the most talked about event in that particular game. In the second set against Marist, with Fairfield trailing 6-5, the Stags had the serve. Twenty straight points later, the Stags never gave up the serve and had won the match 25-6.
The person serving that entire timewas none other than Kara Reis.
The 20 consecutive served points for Reis is good for second all-time in NCAA history, just two short of the record. The Stags would go on to trounce Marist, winning in 3 straight sets.
But before all the records, all the achievements, all the wins, all the hours spent in the gym, and even before all the digs, Reis didn’t look like she had a shot at being a bench player for many college teams, forget an eventual Hall of Famer.
In her senior year at Poway High School in San Diego, Reis tore her ACL, and missed the season. Most schools that were looking at Reis stopped talking to her, and because she couldn’t display her talents, it limited her college options.
“A lot of schools said, ‘We have no interest in you. We don’t think you can get better in time,’” said Reis.
Ironically, the injury was responsible for a bond that formed between Reis and Pittenger. Pittenger had had the exact same injury as Reis, which encouraged her to take the chance on Reis.
“She told me, ‘I know you can come back from it, because I came back from it,’” Reis said. “It gave me a lot of hope and faith, and I think it’s a huge reason why I came to Fairfield.”
Coach Pittenger was able to see a little bit of herself in Kara and was willing to take the chance because of the determination and focus — as well as the goofy playfulness — that has now made Reis famous among the members of the volleyball team.
“I think, in general, you’re not really sure how people are going to come back from an injury like that, but just her personality and how she handles things in general, you knew that she was going to be able to do it,” said Pittenger.
“Her coaches had really great things to say of her. She was everybody’s favorite,” she added.
Reis is still “everybody’s favorite,” and she has seen her role on the team change over the years, depending on who you ask.
“I really look to her, she always has everyone organized, making sure that she everyone knows what they’re doing,” said Nicole Marzik ‘16. “She really is, not in a bad way, the mom of the team, taking care of all of us. She is always the one to step up and take charge.”
“In the last couple of years, she’s taken more of a leadership role on the court, where she’s talking to people, trying to get people going,” said Pittenger.
But that leadership is not the only thing that Reis is known for. “She’s also always been that person you can look to when you need a laugh or smile. She keeps it light on the court, which is great,” commented Pittenger. “And this year she’s taken it to a whole new level where she’s helping everyone else get better and making the people around her better. ”
She continued: “You’re always going to have that player on the court that makes everyone else feel better, and it’s great that its Kara.”
Reis, whose bubbly personality shows both on the court (it’s rare to catch her without a smile on her face before each play) and off (upon sitting down for an earlier interview, she promptly spun around in her chair, smiling), now claims one of the top spots in Fairfield volleyball history.
But with the digs record now behind her, Reis can focus in on guiding her team to a MAAC Tournament Championship .
“That would mean everything in the world to me,” said Reis. “I’ve been saying for the past three years ‘There’s always next year’, but this is it for me. So for me, everything in my entire life has amounted to this one year, this one moment.”
“All I know,” said Reis, sharing a smile with Cruz, “is that I couldn’t have done it without these girls.”
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