College scene: Adjusting to bigger city, smaller school

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September 14, 2009

Having to learn new drills and new coaches, Hazlewood enjoying new surroundings at HBU

By Gene Schallenberg The Huntsville Item Mon Sep 14, 2009, 11:17 PM CDT

After spending her whole life in Huntsville, playing volleyball and going to school, Sarah Hazlewood had a difficult choice to make last spring.

After spending two seasons with the Sam Houston State volleyball team, Hazlewood decided that she needed a change and transferred to Houston Baptist where she landed a spot on the Huskies volleyball team.

“It was really hard to move away,” Hazlewood said, “especially since I went at Sam for two years. Whether it was at Huntsville or at Sam Houston, school was always right down the street. Things were kind of the same once I got to college. Church was every Sunday and I always had home-cooked meals. That made it so tough of a choice to transfer, but it was something I needed to do.”

Going from Huntsville to Houston was quite a leap for Hazlewood.

“I had to make a huge adjustment,” said the former Lady Hornet. “Huntsville is a small town. I’ve lived there forever. Houston’s a big city, but HBU is a smaller school. It’s much more personal and I like it. But the good thing is that Huntsville isn’t much more than an hour away so I can still go to my dad’s church and have those good meals.

“I definitely struggled at first. It was like I was a freshman all over again. I had to learn the new drills and the new coaches. I was the low man on the totem pole again.

“The biggest thing was that I had to prove myself to the girls and to the coaches. I had to earn my keep and work hard to show that I had a good work ethic. I came here to be a leader, not to just stand idly by.”

Hazlewood went through fall camp and has already played a significant role in the first part of the season for the Huskies.

“Every single day I’m here is an affirmation that I made the right decision to come here,” she said. “I prayed about it a lot and since then, the doors have opened like crazy for me. It has been such a smooth transition so far.”

Houston Baptist begins conference play with the Great West Conference this week. Hazlewood and the Huskies will travel to Grand Forks, N.D. to take on North Dakota on Thursday and then face South Dakota on Saturday.

“A lot of our conference games will be like that because our conference is so spread out,” Hazlewood said. “There’s Chicago State in Chicago, then there’s also Utah Valley and plus there’s a school (New Jersey Institute of Technology) in New Jersey. That’s another huge adjustment. This week, we’ll miss three days of classes. It’s really tough to stay on top of everything.”

Houston Baptist had a tough nonconference schedule, going up against teams like Oklahoma, but Hazlewood thinks that has helped the team improve.

“That schedule and playing against those teams has put us right where we need to be,” Hazlewood said. “We’re a young team. We just have to dig in and focus. We have to learn everyday and improve every time we leave the gym. I think we’re right where we need to be.”

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Having to learn new drills and new coaches, Hazlewood enjoying new surroundings at HBU

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