Photo courtesy of Rose Fernandes/Maryland Athletics
Katherine Scherer, one of three freshmen on the Maryland Women’s volleyball team this year, is proving her drive and versatility as the team pushes forward into the late season.
Scherer made her collegiate debut against LSU on Aug. 30. Now more than two months into her season, Scherer, a pin hitter, is striving for consistency in her game and proving to be an asset by playing from both the right and left sides, head coach Adam Hughes said.
As we approach the late season and older players start to get worn down, Scherer is also putting in the extra work at practice and with staff to ensure she is ready to step up if the team needs her.
“We are excited about her future, and I think she’s done a really good job of keeping herself driven towards being great,” Hughes said.
Scherer is a player whose drive and versatility extend far beyond her performance on the court.
Before coming to Maryland, Scherer was a four-year honor roll student with a cumulative weighted GPA of 5.13, a peer mentor in her school, and an active volunteer for children with special needs.
So how did she manage to balance it all while also ending up playing D-1 at Maryland?
The key, Scherer explained, was time management and applying the lessons she learned during her extracurriculars to her game on the court.
In high school, time management meant Scherer was pulling out her homework at lunch and any other free moments throughout the day. In a week filled with three and half hours of volleyball practices three times a week and a lifting session, procrastination was not an option for Scherer.
“I made sure to just keep volleyball at volleyball, and then my schoolwork at home,” Scherer said.
Now playing at the collegiate level, that time management looks a little different. With a more fluid schedule and more time being dedicated to volleyball whether it’s at practice, at the gym, or watching film, Scherer is learning how to balance her new life as a college athlete.
But school work is not the only thing Scherer has learned to budget her time for. In high school, when she wasn’t playing volleyball or focusing on her academics, Scherer spent her time giving back to her community.
One Saturday a month Scherer volunteered with a program run by her church called Buddy Break to take care of a child with special needs. Scherer got to spend a day working and doing activities with these children to give their parents a break from their caregiving duties.
When Scherer first started volunteering in 5th grade she worked alongside her mom, but as she grew into the program Scherer started having her own buddy to take care of during those Saturday afternoons.
“They were so sweet, and it was just great to spend time with them, knowing that you are giving their parents a chance to do things that they want to do too,” Scherer said.
Working with children who have special needs quickly became something she was passionate about, Scherer said, and the lessons she learned during her time with Buddy Break extended into other areas of her life.
“I learned just to be a kind teammate to everyone because you really don’t know what’s going on in someone’s life,” Scherer said.
In addition to becoming a more empathetic teammate, Scherer’s next volunteer experience was filled with invaluable leadership lessons.
In her junior year of high school, Scherer also volunteered as a peer mentor with her school, St. Charles North. As a peer mentor, she was responsible for helping a freshman student integrate into high school while also serving as their role model.
Scherer planned and led activities with her buddy, helped them to make new friends and still made time to take her buddy out for an occasional dinner.
Translating that into her high school game, Scherer said “I get to kind of be the leader on the court and off the court, building those relationships with my teammates who were maybe younger than me at the time”
Now as Scherer pushes forward in her season as a Terp she is working around a new kind of busy schedule, while figuring out how to apply what she has learned from high school time management and volunteering to her college-level game.
“I’m only a freshman … but I know as I grow in the program I’ll try and implicate some of those leadership tactics that I’ve learned from high school,” Scherer said. “So far it’s been amazing… learning from all my teammates and getting to be friends with them has been really really great,” Scherer said.
