A week into her first collegiate volleyball preseason, Rachel Kinney dove for a ball and her right shoulder "felt like it did a 180."
That’s not something a shoulder is supposed to do.
A bone bruise and a torn labrum sidelined the Franklin graduate for almost two months, and when she finally made her debut in a Murray State uniform, Kinney was limited to back-row play because she wasn’t able to swing through the ball.
She played 62 sets in 24 matches, collecting 106 digs, but it wasn’t the kind of contribution she had planned on making.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
With her sophomore season just around the corner, Kinney is finally feeling good and ready to get back into the Racers’ rotation at the outside hitter position.
After sitting out her senior year at Franklin and not being able to play up to her full capability as a Murray State freshman, she’s eager to prove herself.
"It was very heartbreaking," Kinney said of last season, "because I was watching my other teammates do what I know I could do if I was healthy."
Kinney has worked hard to rehab her shoulder and get back to where she was in the past — and she knows she’ll have to keep working to stay afloat in Murray State’s system, where head coach David Schwepker keeps players competing for playing time every week through a series of tournaments in practice.
"You can’t really blame the coach for why you’re not starting," Kinney said. "If you’re not starting, it’s because of you."
The competition figures to be stiff. The Racers return all but one of their top five hitters from a team that went 22-10 and won the Ohio Valley Conference title before dropping a first-round NCAA match against Kentucky.
But Schwepker has no doubt that Kinney will be ready to battle it out.
"She’s so intense when she’s out there," he said. "She’s out there to win; she’s not there to goof around."
The incentive to crack the lineup early is there — the Racers open their season with three matches in Indianapolis at the IUPUI Hampton Inn Invitational on Aug. 30 and 31, the springboard to what Kinney believes will be a fruitful 2019 campaign.
"We definitely have the expectation of winning conference again, especially with our seniors this year," she said.
