Meagan Schoenrock has stood out from Huskie volleyball’s offense and has the possibility of ending up as one of the greats. She and the rest of her team are nearing the end of the regular season and are hoping for a MAC Championship.

Schoenrock sat down with the Northern Star to talk about her team’s uniqueness, her future after college and pranks with jersey stealing and creepy mannequins.

Northern Star: What are the differences between living in DeKalb and living in Sylvania?
Meagan Schoenrock: DeKalb is a lot more open. It’s definitely a farm town. Sylvania is a suburb of Toledo, and Toledo is a pretty big city. They are very different. Sylvania doesn’t have huge open roads like we have here. DeKalb is more of a college-based town, and that’s completely different from where I live.

NS: Hopes for this season and next year?
MS: For this season, I would really like to get to the NCAA tournament. I think that we’re a great team this year. We have all the components, and we work really well together. This is the first team that I’ve been on in a long time that has such great balance and everyone does their job. All together we’re just really awesome. I feel that we can get really far and I’m hoping to get to the tournament. We want to be MAC Champs this year. I pretty much have the same goals for next year because we have some really good recruits coming in and it should be a good year.

NS: What do you think of Ray [Gooden, NIU head coach]?
MS: Ray is a great coach. He’s very tough on us and he has a good balance. He keeps it fun, and he knows his stuff. He is probably one of the most volleyball-smart coaches that I’ve had. He really knows the game, and it’s really nice to learn from him.
When you and your teammates are confident in your coaches, it’ll be easier for you to perform just because you trust what your coaches have to say. I don’t think we ever doubt our coaches.
NS: Any funny pranks with teammates or Ray?
MS: We have all kinds of crazy stuff. One of the biggest ones is every first away match we always steal one freshman’s jersey. We pretend that she had lost it or forgot it. One year, it got to the point that Ray was involved in it. This year Dani [D’Ambrose] always does it to Allison [McGlaughlin]. It’s almost every game. It’s funny. Another one is Dani has a fake mannequin thing. It’s kind of creepy actually. We shoved it in Jody’s [Hardwick] locker one day and she had a heart attack, which was pretty funny. We like to give each other a hard time.

NS: Plans for after college?
MS: I would really like to be in a design firm around Chicago. I’m doing some internships and stuff like that. Kate McCullagh and I have been joking around about maybe going over to Italy to play, but I don’t know if we’re ever going to pull that off because she’s in the real world now and actually has a job. She said that if I go over there to play, she’ll come with me. That’s kind of a fun little dream that maybe we can do, but who knows? Maybe I’ll be ready for the real world after college.

NS: Halloween plans?
MS: We have a game on Saturday, but I think with the time change we won’t get back too late. I think we’ll have a little Halloween party Saturday. I’m sure that we’ll all get dressed up and adorable.

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