Cal State Fullerton Notebook / Robyn Norwood : She’s Long-Running Hit for Volleyball Team

In Susan Herman’s time on the Cal State Fullerton women’s volleyball team, she has done enough hitting for several careers.

Her career, though, is still far from over. Only a junior, she already has more kills than any other player in Fullerton history.

In volleyball, a sport with a reputation for the obscurity of some of its statistics, kills are the glamour statistic, the point-ending hit.

Officially, a kill is an attack that leads directly to a blocking error or can’t be returned.

Like anyone with a particular skill, Herman has situations she favors.

“I like hitting the high ball outside,” she said.

She also likes to hit off a quick set, on which blocker is fooled.

“That’s fun. That leaves the court open and you can blast away. That’s the ideal,” she said.

Just what makes Herman excel at hitting isn’t immediately clear.

She lacks some of the athleticism of another Fullerton player, Tammy Miller, who is a sister of basketball players Reggie and Cheryl and Angel catcher Darrell Miller.

As Herman said, laughing, “It’s definitely not leaping.”

What then?

“I think I anticipate well,” Herman said. “I’ve learned to read the (blockers). I see the court. I have good concentration.”

Whatever the reasons, the numbers are indisputable.

Midway through her third season, she already has 911 kills, more than 200 more than the school record she broke early this season. Her 431 kills last season were a single-season Fullerton record. And her average of 4.2 kills a game this season ranks third in the Big West Conference, trailing only two of the best players in the country--Cal State Long Beach’s Tara Cross (5.9) and Hawaii’s Teee Williams (5.7).

Setting the career record was something of an anticlimax.

“Since I knew it was going to happen, I kind of set my goals beyond that,” Herman said. “I knew that would come.”

Among her goals is to be in the top 10 in the country in kills per game at the end of the season. She also would like to lead Fullerton in hitting percentage, a distinction Miller holds. She used to hope to reach 1,000 kills, but that goal appears imminent.

Behind all the numbers, there is a struggle--that of Fullerton, playing in the Big West, acknowledged as the country’s toughest volleyball conference.

Last season, Fullerton won just 1 of 18 conference matches and finished 9-23.

This season, the Titans are 8-12 and have lost their first 6 conference matches.

“Being able to play in the best conference in the nation is important to me,” Herman said.

But the captain of a team with six freshmen would trade the mounting number of kills for a few more victories.

“If I get less sets but we win more games, who cares?”

The Fullerton football team, coming off a 23-10 loss to Big West favorite Fresno State, must regroup to face Cal State Long Beach Saturday in a homecoming game at Long Beach.

“They’re a scary football team. They’re an 0-5 football team . . . but they’re dangerous,” Fullerton Coach Gene Murphy said Monday.

Long Beach quarterback Jeff Graham, a former Estancia High School player, threw for a career-high 422 yards in a 31-24 loss to Utah State Saturday.

Basketball teams across the country are allowed to begin practicing Saturday and Fullerton Coach George McQuarn said he is eager to get started.

No small task awaits him.

Fullerton lost all five starters from last year’s 12-17 team, including Richard Morton and Henry Turner.

The top returning scorer from last year’s team is Benson Williams, who averaged fewer than three points a game.

McQuarn’s hopes rest largely on Derek Jones, a starting forward two years ago who is returning after missing last season because of injuries suffered in a drive-by shooting.

“There are some challenges,” McQuarn said. “We’ll be counting on a lot of new kids.”