Capital City News
Sbragia taking volleyball skills to Texas Tech University
Robert Perea (rperea@rgj.com) | Reno Gazette-Journal
July 25, 2007 | Amanda Sbragia is surprised that you know who she is.
Not all of you, obviously, since she's lived in Dayton her whole life, and comes from a well-known family. Enough of you, though, that she's surprised every time she gets stopped in Smith's or at the post office by someone wondering how her college playing career is doing.
"People stop me and ask how I'm doing, where I'm going," Sbragia said. "It's nice that people remember you. "It's funny, there's some younger kids who know who I am," she added.
Now she'll try to introduce herself to a whole new community as she begins her career on the Texas Tech University volleyball team.
Sbragia will be just the third Dayton High graduate, and the first female, to play NCAA Division I athletics. Jeremy Kinney played baseball at the University of San Francisco, while Matt Bowman is currently playing baseball at the University of Nevada.
Sbragia spent last season at Feather River College in Quincy, Calif., where she totaled 485 kills and an average of 5.77 kills per game, ranking third in both categories among all California community college players. As a freshman, Sbragia played at Butte College in Chico, Calif., and finished 17th in the state in total kills and ranked 33rd and led her team with 3.65 kills per game.
Good start at Butte
Although Sbragia's coach at Dayton, Sondra McMullen, and many opposing coaches, believed Sbragia was talented enough to play in Division I, it was at Butte as a freshman where Sbragia began to believe it herself.
"A couple girls I went to Butte with went to Division I, and that pushed me," Sbragia said. "In high school, my dream was to win a championship, but after my first year of JC I liked the competition and thought I could get more out of it."
However, when she first began her career at Dayton, Sbragia thought it would be basketball, not volleyball, that might take her to college. She started on the varsity squads in both sports as a freshman.
While basketball was her first love, volleyball quickly grew on her, especially because the team was successful. She credits that to McMullen, who also coached her eighth grade Dayton Intermediate School team.
"I played with McMullen as the coach five years, but in basketball I played for four different coaches in five years," she said.
As a senior in 2004, Sbragia led the Dust Devils to the 3A state volleyball championship, the school's first state title in any sport. That year, she also began to concentrate more seriously on volleyball, joining the Capital City Volleyball Club.
"I didn't realize at the time that if you wanted to get picked up (to play in college), it's something you have to do," she said. "Playing club enhances your skills because you're playing all the time. And Capital City has awesome coaches."
After considering an offer to play at Chico State, Sbragia thought starting her career in junior college was the best way to go, so she enrolled at Butte instead.
After Sbragia's freshman season, Butte assistant coach Sarah Ritchie was named the head coach at Feather River, and Sbragia followed.
"I saw how hard she worked to get the older girls scholarships," Sbragia said.
Recruiting interest
Sbragia began to garner some recruiting attention after her debut season at Butte, but wasn't hearing from many Division I schools yet.
"Early on it was a bunch of Division II schools, and at that point I kind of procrastinated," Sbragia said. "We sent out film, then the calls started to come."
One of the first scholarship offers was from Texas Tech, but initially Sbragia wasn't interested.
"They wanted me to come on a trip," she said in a telephone interview from Lubbock, Texas. "At the beginning I was close-minded about it because I didn't want to go that far, but once I got here the coaches were nice, and I liked all the girls. It felt right."
Sbragia moved to Lubbock in June to get started on summer school and to get to know her new teammates. She works out with the players at the campus recreation center every morning at 5:50 a.m., before classes. Practice is scheduled to begin Aug. 7.
Last year the Red Raiders finished 12-17 overall and 5-15 in the Big 12. They return nine players and have two incoming freshmen and another junior college transfer along with Sbragia.
Sbragia was recruited to Texas Tech as an outside hitter, where she played in junior college, but she says she is not sure how big her role will be and she has not yet set any goals for the coming season.
"Not yet, because don't really know what to expect yet," she said. "I'm still learning my way around here. I'm just trying to get to know how to do this type of stuff."
"I'm excited to see what new territory I've gotten myself into," she added.
Meanwhile, Sbragia said she was shocked to find out that she was just the first Dayton female athlete to get a Division I scholarship.
"Actually, I really didn't know that," she said. "I feel privileged. When I was in high school there were a lot of good athletes, but they didn't go on. It just drove me. I didn't want to be one of the Dayton athletes that just stop after high school."
