Wake Forest Athletics
Maso de Moya Taking Leading Role Seriously
10/9/2000 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 9, 2000
By Will Shapiro
Personal statistics are not the major concern of any great athlete, and Trina Maso de Moya is no exception. She is easily leading the Wake Forest volleyball team in kills per game and digs per game and has recorded double figures in both categories in eight of the team's 14 matches. Still, Maso de Moya's focus is on the success of the team.
Of the team's 10-4 season to date and of what is yet to come, the junior outside hitter says, "We've had a couple of disappointments, but we've learned from those. We all expect to do well, and if we play the way we're capable of playing, we should do very well."
If the team does indeed do well, Maso de Moya will be a huge part of it. In the first five weeks of the season, she has already been named ACC Player of the Week twice, matching her accomplishment of a year ago. Her 4.93 kills per game are nearly one and half kills better than any of her teammates, and she is well on her way to shattering her own school record, set last year, of 4.09 kills per game. Her 4.66 digs per game lead the team by slightly less than two and, coming into this season she already held the Wake record in career digs, a feat she accomplished in just two years. Still, it's all in a day's work for Maso de Moya.
"I feel like I'm expected to go out on the court and do my job and if I get a kill, I feel like I'm just doing what's expected of me, so I don't get excited when those things happen."
Her on-the-court intensity is a trademark. Her expression rarely changes, and her eyes never leave the ball. She has amazing court awareness, whether she is positioned in the front or back row. Perhaps her tremendous instinct is a result of her athletic history. At St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Maso de Moya was a standout in soccer as well as volleyball. In fact, her soccer achievements were perhaps more outstanding than those in volleyball. She led the nation in scoring in both her junior and senior seasons and was a three-year first-team all-state forward. Lucky for Wake Forest, volleyball was her destiny.
"I always thought that I was going to play college soccer, hands down," she says. "I was just playing volleyball to play. But my high school volleyball coach said, 'We'll see.' And then by my junior year, all my visits were for volleyball . Wake had the best academic reputation of all the schools I was looking at and were looking at me, so it took that, and my mom crying to me to come here, to make my decision."
And it was a decision this team is glad she made. Maso de Moya is a lock to repeat as a first-team All-ACC player, and she is making a run at the ACC's Most Valuable Player award. Still, she knows that her success is not completely her own.
"I wouldn't have the kills that I have if I didn't get sets," she says, "or if I didn't get digs from the back row when I was in the front row. It's a team game."
Attendance has been sparse for volleyball, thought it seems to be on the upswing. Maso de Moya attributes this to the team's increasing success. The level of talent on this team is opening some eyes.
"Volleyball is an exciting sport to watch," she says. "People come once and they think, 'Wow, I never knew volleyball could be like that.' That's because people just think of what they play at their family picnics. They don't understand until they watch us that it's a totally different game from what they normally see."
While she definitely supports every team at Wake Forest, Maso de Moya wonders about the fairness of the athletic facility usage scheduling.
She says, "I don't see why, when we're in-season approaching our biggest matches, the basketball team gets our gym, even though their season hasn't started yet. We have to go up to the fourth floor and we don't get to practice in the gym that we have a match in the next day."
When it was suggested to her that perhaps an ACC championship or two in volleyball might change that, she gave the following response:
"That just might have to happen."
With Trina Maso de Moya anchoring the team, it very well could happen.
