During its match against Kent State, the NIU volleyball team was reconnected with one of its long-lost players.

After being benched for over a month due to a long stint of mononucleosis, freshman outside hitter Meghan Romo finally got back in the game.

Before this weekend, the last time Romo saw action on the court was in the opening tournament of the season. She came out with confidence and impressed the team, making several clutch plays in the final moments of the game against SIU.

Then the mono hit, demolishing any further participation on her part with the team until she had time to recover. Despite how tempting spending weeks in bed might sound, especially to students coming out of midterm week, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

“I was just so tired, I would just sleep all day long,” Romo said. “Just go to class, go home and sleep. I’d never been that sick in my life.”

For the last two weeks leading up to her return to the court, Romo came to team practices purely as an observer. Slowly, she worked her way up to participating in them herself.

“She had been doing really well in practice,” teammate Meagan Schoenrock said. “We just obviously didn’t want to rush things.”

Finally, after weeks of recovery, she made it onto the court during the second set of the Kent State match.

“I was nervous at first,” Romo said. “But right when I got on the court, I got comfortable. The girls helped me out.”

From the way she played that night, it was as if she had never been gone. The team gelled together like a puzzle with its last piece finally in place. Romo was able to contribute to the team’s offense, executing six successful kills during her two sets of play.

“We’re excited to have her back,” NIU head coach Ray Gooden said. “We needed some offense [Saturday night], and she helped us with that.”

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