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Lady Matador star signs letter of intent
Published December 18, 2009
SEGUIN — After helping guide the Lady Matadors to their first-ever state tournament bid (and spiking volleyballs off of the faces of numerous opponents along the way), Seguin’s Marquisha Matthews is ready for a new challenge.
And on Thursday, the senior made that next step official, signing a letter of intent to play volleyball for the Temple College Leopards and head coach Mary Reese.
In a short ceremony featuring family, friends and former and future instructors, Matthews began the transition from veteran leader to talented freshman, although the honoree said that the lessons she’s learned in the past few months will no doubt come in handy at the collegiate level.
“Coach Gerlich, she’s taught us to grow up and handle pressure and Temple College is going to be a different level than high school,” Matthews said. “But I guess going to state helped because I felt like that wasn’t even high school.”
Matthews has chosen to graduate early, meaning that she’ll join her new teammates on Jan. 3 and begin to get acclimated to campus life. Matthews did note, however, that she already feels a chemistry with the rest of the girls.
“I just connected with the team, like right away,” Matthews said of her decision to choose Temple College.
The Leopards, who compete in the North Texas Junior College Athletic Conference, went 23-22 overall this season, including a conference-best 9-1 record against division foes.
Reese, who will be entering her sixth year as Temple’s head coach in the fall, said that Matthews’ experience and athleticism will benefit the Leopards immediately — a sentiment shared by coach Robin Gerlich, who knows exactly how hard her former star has worked to get to this point.
“Marquisha’s made a lot of sacrifices — not only at Seguin High School — to play,” Gerlich said. “In the offseason, she played club and I know she worked a lot so she could afford to play that, and for a lot of athletes, that’s how it is.
“She kept a job, balanced her grades and everything she did and it has just been remarkable and that’s a credit to her work ethic and her desire to play college ball.”
Matthews said that in addition to hitting the volleyball court, she’ll be hitting the books while majoring in kinesiology and minoring in business.
But even with all of the accolades, which basically saw Matthews named to every existing all-star squad in the area, the senior says that one memory will come to mind first when she thinks about the Lady Matadors’ amazing run in 2009 — namely, the feeling of being on top and being looked up to by younger members of the community.
“When we went to a middle school, I told the kids I felt like a celebrity when we walked into the gym,” she said. “There were so many people in there and everybody was cheering for us.”
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