Langston Might Hold CS Northridge’s Success at the Tips of Her Fingers

For the past five years Cal State Northridge has supplied the setter on the Division II All-American women’s volleyball team. First came Shelli Mosby, a three-time selection, then Angela Brinton, last season’s national player of the year.

To continue the trend, it appeared Coach Walt Ker had three choices. He could:

Recruit a high school all-star and hope for quick improvement.

Sign an all-state junior college player.

Move an outside hitter to setter and pray.

Ker, whose teams have won three Division II national titles in eight years, tried all three routes. Surprisingly, the latter one worked best.

Karen Langston, who almost quit the team last season rather than move to setter, has become CSUN’s starter. She had played the position only once before last season. And that was for only one match in high school.

“I did really awful,” Langston said. “That was, or I thought it was, the end of my setting career.”

When Ker first approached Langston regarding the switch, her answer was a blunt, “I can’t set.”

Both parties have learned differently in the past few months.

“In terms of her set location, leadership abilities, blocking and movement of the ball, she’s No. 1, No. 1, No. 1, No. 1,” Ker said of Langston.

After playing in the back row in 1986, Langston started last season competing for one of two left-side hitting positions. If she didn’t earn a starting position outside, Langston assumed she would be able to continue playing in the back row.

Ker had other ideas.

Langston saw the need for a backup setter but wasn’t sure she was the right person for the job.

“I could see myself sitting on the bench for the rest of the season when I had just been competing for a starting spot,” Langston said. “When I took over that role, I wasn’t really willing to say, ‘OK, yeah, I’ll be a backup setter and sit on the bench.’ ”

Nevertheless, that is precisely what she ended up doing. Brinton played in 131 of the Lady Matadors’ 148 games--including every play in the postseason--while Langston sat and contemplated quitting.

“I never thought I would be a good setter, but Walt had a lot of confidence in me,” Langston said. “I tried to use that as much as I could because at that point, I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself at that position.”

When Langston got the opportunity, she played well. During one tournament, Brinton sprained her ankle and Northridge barely skipped a beat, going on to win the championship with Langston on the court.

“There were a couple of coaches who saw her and thought she was our starting setter,” Ker said.

But Langston still wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t until a U. S. Volleyball Assn. tournament last spring that she finally felt comfortable at the position.

“We had a couple of competitive games and I really had a lot of fun,” Langston said. “I’m starting to enjoy the position more, not just because I know I’m going to play there but because it has become more of a challenge.”

Teammates have noticed a change in the intensity of Langston’s play.

Dawn Eto, an outside hitter, said when Langston first made the position switch her play was less than enthusiastic. “Her attitude was, ‘I don’t really want to do this. Doesn’t someone else want to set?’ ” Eto said.

“Now she wants to set during every drill.”

Langston’s main drawback is her lack of experience. To that end, Ker scheduled 25 matches in September.

“The setting position involves a lot of tactical decision-making,” Ker said. “Even though she’s grown a lot in that area, there’s nothing like being in a real match and having me walk up to her after a timeout and say, ‘Look, this is what their team is doing and you need to do this.’

“That’s a real unknown factor--how quickly she will respond.”

Certainly, lack of confidence is no longer a factor.

Langston jokingly threatened to steal Ker’s erasers when he said she was “penciled in” to start. She also refused to feel threatened when Ker recruited two other setters--freshman Karen Scholl from Las Vegas and Melanie Mariano, a transfer from Chabot College who made the JC all-state team last season.

“Karen’s attitude has really changed,” Ker said. “I’m seeing her become proud of being a setter.

“There’s nothing I’d like more than to have her be an All-American this year so I can come back to her and say, ‘I can’t set?’ ”