By Alex Riley
Special to SMUMustangs.com
DALLAS – Wins. Accolades. Upsets. Success. Endurance.
These are the building blocks by which an athletic program is built. Often times, they come slowly, but their importance cannot be understated.
For 25 seasons, SMU volleyball has built a culture in pursuit of these moments, lifting the Mustangs from spunky upstart to postseason contender. And for the players who made them possible, these moments still hold a special place in their heart.
Somewhere to start
For Erin Pryor, the early losses stand out more than the wins.
That's the byproduct of growing accustomed to victory, which Pryor and her teammates knew before arriving at SMU. The first roster's mix of true freshmen and junior college transfers came from strong volleyball backgrounds, hailing from high level programs who routinely won big.
Before 1996, SMU volleyball didn't exist.
"To go to losing a lot, I think it was a real character builder if you will," Pryor said with a laugh. "But it was cool to be a part of something that you knew eventually would be bigger than yourself and that season."
It took three matches before SMU got a victory that year and they finished with just seven wins in 31 matches. Pryor remembers lining up against BYU, a powerhouse in the sport. The Cougars lineup featured players in their early 20s. The Mustangs still had players who weren't even 18 at the time.
"It was like the women playing the children," Pryor joked.
In defeat, there were lessons. Lessons that resulted in more than double the wins the following season (7 in 1996 to 15 in 1997). When Pryor was a senior, the Mustangs notched 20 victories and recorded their first winning campaign overall and in Western Athletic Conference play.
"That was no small feat. There was pain and sweat to get to that point," Pryor said. "Just to see where the program has come, it makes me really proud to be a part of it."
First on the wall
The moment Charity Gomez saw it, she couldn't believe it.
Gomez, formerly Charity Savedra, came to volleyball late, having to give up gymnastics after growing too tall. She came from a small high school in Socorro, Arizona and didn't play the club circuit like others. She had to spend two seasons at Seward Community College in Liberal, Kansas before getting a Division I offer to join the Mustangs' inaugural team.
And yet there she was in the SMU volleyball offices looking at a picture of herself framed on the wall. Coach Lisa Seifert started a space to honor players who earned honors like all-conference, all-region, or All-American. And, following the 1997 season, Gomez became the first Mustang to be recognized.
"Just being from where I came from where nobody ever went to college to play and then to have my picture on a wall, you're kind of like, 'Oh my gosh, did this just really happen?' It is really cool," Gomez said. She earned second team All-WAC honors that season.
Now a high school volleyball coach herself, Gomez comes back to Dallas every year to help teach the next generation of players at SMU's summer camps. She passes the wall and sees many others who have joined her. But somebody had to be first.
"I feel like I'm still a part of it, even though it's been 25 years," Gomez said.
Headed to the next level
Beth Falls knew Caldwell, Texas. Outside of that, things were kind of a mystery.
Falls, formerly Beth Karasek, knew nothing of Dallas before her recruiting visit. But after four years on the Hilltop, the Texan founder herself an ocean away from the Lone Star State.
Falls established herself as one of the best in SMU history. She earned All-WAC honors three times, including first team distinction as a junior and senior.
When college ended, her desire to play the game she'd loved since eight was still there. To do that meant she had to leave home.
"I quit my (first post-college) job after three days and it was literally two days later that I was on a plane to France from Houston, and my mom was so mad at me. She wouldn't talk to me for two days. She thought I was crazy for doing that," Falls jokes. "It was something I wanted to do and I was like, 'Why not? I've got nothing else holding me back.'"
Falls became the first SMU athlete to try her hand at professional volleyball, suiting up for a team outside of Leon in France in 2004-05. For a year, she traveled Europe, seeing places she'd only known from books.
She eventually came home, became a coach, worked at Texas Tech for almost a decade and settled down as a stay-at-home mom. But her tenure as a pro athlete is an experience she never envisioned as possible and will certainly never forget.
"My coach, he let us travel. We'd have a week off here or there before certain games and if you just asked him if you could skip practice for this week, 'I want to go to Paris or London,' he was like sure. As long as you were taking care of your stuff, he didn't care," Falls said. "To me that was so worth it to be able to go travel and do all the things I wouldn't have been able to do."
Among America's best
Externally, there's no doubt Kendra Martin smiled. But inside, her emotions were a bit more tapered, almost to the point of wondering, 'Why me?'
Following the conclusion of the 2009 season, Martin, then Kendra Kahanek, and teammate Dana Powell became the first SMU volleyball players to be recognized as All-Americans. Both were tabbed by the American Volleyball Coaches Association as honorable mention selections.
"I felt quiet on the inside. I felt very reserved because I felt like, 'How did I receive this when so many other girls are doing their heart out every single day just as hard as I am?'" Martin said. "I felt very small, actually, in that moment. I know that those other girls are giving their heart out just as hard as I am, so there's no distinction in my mind."
Since breaking through in 2009, six total Mustangs have been tabbed as honorable mention All-Americans, including a stretch from 2012-16 where at least one athlete made it each year.
But she and Powell did it first, an honor that Martin still finds hard to believe all these years later.
"It still brings a lot of humility to my heart that I would even receive that honor, to be honest," Martin said. "I definitely think it was a wonderful gift from God that I would even receive that. It was an honor to be on a team with a bunch of other girls too who played just as hard as Dana and I did."
Setting a new standard
By 2010, SMU volleyball was no stranger to success. The Mustangs had two 20-win seasons since 1996 and were coming off a 19-win campaign in 2009.
But for Kathryn Wilkerson and her teammates, there was more to accomplish.
"We really built up a core team of a bunch of people that played really well together and really got along," Wilkerson said. "Starting well before my senior year season, we were in it to win it. It wasn't necessarily about getting a number – it was about being the best."
What the Mustangs did in 2010 reset the standard for success. Over 31 matches, the team went 25-6, finishing 17-3 in Conference USA and just missing an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament. It was the most wins in a season in school history, a mark that remained until the 2015 team won 27 matches.
And that aforementioned standard? Following the 2010 season, SMU won 20 or more games from 2013-17 with three total postseason appearances.
"We were excited about it, but the goal was to win the conference and get to the NCAA Tourney, which unfortunately didn't happen for us, but it paved the way for that to happen soon after," Wilkerson said.
Giant finally slain
All Caroline Castle could hear was the crowd's rumble surrounding her, a deafening noise of pure jubilation. Six games into the 2014 season, and almost 20 years since the program began, SMU had finally pulled off David vs. Goliath.
In front of more than 1,000 fans, at the time the second-largest crowd in program history, the Mustangs had beaten No. 24 Oklahoma for the team's first upset of ranked opponent. SMU fell behind by dropping the first two sets before storming back for the victory in five.
"I felt like it was a moment I had pictured prior to play at SMU and then it came true and we won. It was super incredible," Castle said.
Out of high school, Castle, then Caroline Young, had her pick of college opportunities. Among that group were the Mustangs and Sooners.
On this night, the nerves certainly kicked in. Once history was made, so did the smile.
"I was anxious and this is the moment to prove that I made the right decision," Castle said. "I just remember being out there for game point and just the magnitude. I felt like of that moment of us finally beating a ranked team and the crowd was really awesome."
Best of the best
Avery Acker came to SMU with a purpose – to get a degree in pre-med and play volleyball. During her recruiting process, she stressed how important the educational side of being a student-athlete was to her. It wasn't something she was willing to sacrifice for wins and personal accolades.
And it's hard to argue that anyone has ever done a better job of handling both roles.
Acker was honorable mention All-American three times, American Athletic Conference Player of the Year, and a three-time All-AAC pick.
But of all the honors, one stands tallest – American Athletic Conference Female Scholar Athlete of the Year.
"I worked really hard on the court and in the weight room, but there was a whole other full time job for me outside of athletics, which was studying. And that's what people don't see about a scholar-athlete," Acker said. "They see the result, the game, the scoreboard – they don't see the scholar part."
Acker remains the only SMU athlete to earn the league's top student-athlete honor, capturing the crown in 2015. Now an emergency room resident in Dallas, she's continuing to follow her dreams and maintaining the highest standard.
"To have that aspect of my life, which was just as many hours as athletics, was huge for me. It kept me encouraged to continue on," Acker said.
Finally breaking through
Carry on a tradition. Start a new one.
These are the things Morgan Heise weighed when she made her college decision out of high school. Plenty of well-established programs wanted her to help them maintain their success. SMU wanted her to help them reach those pinnacles.
That's why she ended up in Dallas.
"I wanted to go to a college where I could possibly make something happen. Not be a big deal, but make them better in a way," Heise said. "When we finally went to the NCAA Tournament, heck that was our goal from the start. Me and Kristen (Stehling) would talk about that – we would be the first class to do it and we did it."
Heise helped SMU to their first NCAA Tournament in 2015, a first-round exit at the hands of Purdue during a match in Austin. That moment set the stage for arguably the greatest win in program history a year later.
With the nerves of simply getting there gone, Heise and the Mustangs proved they belonged in 2016, taking down Texas A&M in straight sets for the program's first NCAA postseason victory.
After more than two decades, SMU made history on college volleyball's biggest stage. It's a moment that still shines brightest among them all.
"Everyone was nervous the first round, not knowing what to expect and then after that we're like, 'We can hang with these big girls," Heise said. "When we came back the second year, it was like 'We know what to expect, let's just go out and get it."
