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player ready...Notre Dame volleyball coach Patrick Cole owes the baseball program a thank you.
If Daniel Messina’s baseball tryout had gone a little better, Cole might be without his team leader and sole returning player.
When baseball didn’t pan out his freshman year, Messina looked toward volleyball, the sport his sister, Lauren, played for Regina, and one he had played in tournaments.
“I was like, ‘Why not? I’m not doing baseball so I might as well try it,’ ” said Messina, now a senior. “I tried it. I loved it. I ended up being MVP freshman year for our [freshman] team and then I just got hooked.”
Messina, a Chicago resident, is needed more than ever. He is the lone holdover from last year’s 22-10 team that went 8-0 in the East Suburban Catholic.
“The guys last year really gave me a lot of intelligence about the game and they taught me so much,” Messina said.
Messina served as the team’s energy bug off the bench last year, playing in approximately 10 of 32 games.
“He had the opportunity to sort of, in a no-pressure situation for an entire season, just work and hone his craft,” Cole said.
This year, he’s played all but a few meaningless end-of-game rotations. All the while, he has become the team’s indisputable leader.
“It’s his nature as a competitor and as a young man to want to be on the front and to want to lead,” Cole said. “It’s nothing that we ever had to talk about.”
The Dons have needed Messina’s leadership this year. Every one of his teammates is playing varsity for the first time.
Senior setter Angelo Giannoni is one of those teammates, and he said playing varsity has been a true transition.
“The pressure tends to get to them a little bit,” Giannoni said. “Even me, I get a little nervous when I’m out there and the crowds are two times as big as junior varsity. [There are] way better players, and just the tempo, it’s so quick.”
The Dons have not enjoyed the kind of ease that marked last season, when they won their first outright conference title since 1998. They lost three-setters to Payton and Niles North among their first several matches. They lost three in a row at the Marian Catholic Tournament. On Tuesday, April 21, they lost to conference rival Benet, so another perfect ESCC season wasn’t possible.
“That’s when we rely on Dan a lot,” Giannoni said. “Even me, I tend to get frustrated at times, so I turn to Dan for leadership basically and to keep our heads up.”
Messina said he sees himself as a liaison between Cole and the players. When Cole is trying to get an important point across, Messina will make sure his teammates are listening — and perhaps emphasize the point himself.
Most important, Messina’s blend of smarts and work ethic serves as a model.
“He [is] talented, but more than his talents, he’s a try-hard guy with work ethic that if you could replicate, any coach would want that in all of their players,” Cole said. “When the ball’s in play, he’s always in the right spot. The kid hits the floor more than anybody I’ve ever seen going after balls.”
For a team looking to build a new identity in the wake of last season’s success, that’s a good start.
“It was a great accomplishment for them,” Giannoni said, reflecting on last year’s conference crown, “but we had to look at this year as a new beginning.”
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It’s a new beginning — led by an experienced old hand in Messina.
Rosenblum is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.