Aug. 27, 2008
NORMAL, Ill. -
Senior right side hitter M.C. Richmond has come full circle in her volleyball career over the past four years. The St. Louis native was a first-team all-conference selection in both her junior and senior years at Lindbergh High School, and even led the Flyers to a school-record 30 wins in her final season (2004). Despite her athleticism, Richmond was not highly recruited at the NCAA Division I level, but was given an opportunity to play at Illinois State. The rest MAY be history, as she enters her fourth and final season in a Redbird uniform in 2008.
Over the past two seasons, Richmond has established herself as one of the most versatile offensive players in the Missouri Valley Conference. She scored 442 points as a sophomore, and followed it up with 463.5 points last season - both marks rank within the top-10 efforts at ISU since the statistic became officially recognized by the NCAA in 2002. Last season, she averaged an impressive 4.07 points per game. Richmond enters her senior season with 1,120.5 career points, which ranks fourth on the all-time list. Notably, she is just 76 kills away from joining the 1,000-career kill club.
Richmond has enjoyed numerous single-match standout performances, as well. The 32.5 points she scored against UNI in a thrilling five-game Redbird win (Oct. 6, 2007) last season set both a Redbird Arena and ISU single-match record. Her output came off 28 kills, the second-most in Redbird Arena history. Another memorable performance came on Nov. 3, 2006, when Richmond had 14 kills against just one error, and hit .650 in a three-game sweep over Indiana State.
Richmond began showing her impact at Illinois State in just her freshman season. The Redbirds tended to have more success when Richmond had things going offensively, despite playing alongside a stable of talented offensive players, and perhaps more dependable offensive options, in the likes of Laura Doornbos, Savannah Knowles, Emily Kabbes and Kari Staehlin. ISU had a 5-0 record in 2005 when Richmond hit .350-or-better in a single-match. She played a more vital role when Staehlin was sidelined with mononucleosis, and ended the season by being named to the State Farm MVC All-Tournament Team.
Richmond's coming out party came in her sophomore campaign (2006), when she recorded career-highs in games played (116) and blocks (95.0), while collecting double-digit kill efforts in 23 individual matches, including the last seven of the season. She hit .300-or-better in 11 contests, and also began to show her defensive capabilities, ending the season with double-digit dig tallies in 14 matches, including the last four of the regular-season.
Last season, Richmond started 32 of ISU's 33 matches despite battling a mid-to-late season stress fracture. She set career-highs in kills (395), set-assists (110) and points (463.5), and her 422 digs were 39 more than she tallied in her first two seasons combined. Offensively, Richmond recorded 23 matches with double-digit kills, including four 20-plus kill outings, and hit .300 or better in 12 contests. She was named the MVC Player of the Week for the period ending Sept. 16, 2007, after averaging 4.33 kills and 3.33 digs per game while hitting .319 for the week, in a home match against No. 20 Ohio State, and road tilts at Southern Illinois and Evansville.
Richmond, like many of her teammates, would quickly dismiss any discussions of individual accolades for team-centered considerations. But what may be even more impressive than her career numbers is how highly Richmond is respected among the other nine head coaches in the Valley. Richmond has been tabbed a preseason All-Valley selection in each of the past two seasons in a poll conducted by the league's head coaches.
If those preseason prognostications hold true as they did last season, Richmond will become just the third player in program history to be named First-Team All-Missouri Valley Conference three times in her career. She would join Patti Hoppa (1993-96) and Becky Weber (1998-2001) in that group.
Thursday's final 12 Topics in 12 Days installment will take a look at ISU's four freshman newcomers.
