The beginning of the 2019 volleyball season for UTEP's
Irbe Lazda was a dream start to her collegiate career.
Lazda played 39 sets and 10 matches, while making seven starts as a true freshman for the Miners, but the tide changed when she was sidelined due to injury. She would go on to receive a medical redshirt after suffering a season-ending injury prior to conference play.
But prior to injury, Lazda was one of the top freshmen in Conference USA. She recorded 75 kills with a .413 hitting percentage and became the first C-USA Freshman of the Week in program history before injury cut her season short. Lazda hit a historic .700 with 16 kills in a five-set victory against Texas A&M-CC, which ranked as the second-highest hitting percentage for a five-set match in program history. Lazda also locked in 15 service aces and totaled 38.0 blocks for the Miners last season.
In this week's Friday Feature, we sat down (virtually) with Lazda to discuss her injury-laden freshman campaign, her experience with the Latvian national team and how she's preparing for the 2020 volleyball season.
Q&A WITH UTEP VOLLEYBALL'S IRBE LAZDA
Q: How have you spent the last few months without having the opportunity to return home to Latvia?
I haven't gone home because when everything happened I went to Hawaii and then after that I went to California. Then, when I finally could buy a ticket home, my coach called me and told me that it is safer to stay because I might not be able to come back. Now, all my friends who play volleyball in the states don't know what to do because people from Latvia can't come back here, so I am happy I stayed.
Q: With the spring season being cut short and having to sit out most of last season, how much are you anticipating returning to the court?
There have been other things to do, but I definitely miss volleyball because I didn't play much last season, so I've been wanting to play even more now. I was so excited about the spring tournaments, but then everything was shut down. I was so sad about it, but now I am just hoping that we are going to get a season [this fall].
Q: What are your takeaways from your freshman season considering you had to battle through an injury early on in your college career?
It was definitely tough. All the games I played in were during preseason. If I remember correctly, I broke my foot one week before conference [started]. Not that preseason is not important, but what you've been practicing for, training for is conference starting and I missed every game during conference. It was definitely tough because during my last three years of high school, all I was dreaming and thinking about was playing in the States in college. And when I'm finally here and finally start playing, something like that happens. It was tough, but I believe that everything happens for a reason. When I came to El Paso, I was telling myself that I won't have any expectations and I think I did a pretty good job of that. Obviously, it would get frustrating at times during practice because there was a lot of new stuff I had to learn, but it was fun. I was just ready to play and learn.
Q: Talk about your experience playing as a member of the Latvian National Team.
One of my biggest achievements was in 2018 with the youth national team when we qualified for the European Championships and that was exciting. I think just the overall experience playing with a national team is just really exciting because you get the 2-3 weeks of camps before the matches. You know the people, but you have never really played with them a lot, so it's something new from that aspect. With national team experience, I wish everyone could experience that because you get to play against teams with amazing players.
Q: What made you want to choose UTEP to continue your playing career?
It was definitely the coaches. That is what I keep telling everyone. In the recruiting process, you talk with a lot of coaches. Obviously, the coach is who you need to have good contact with, so that is what I was looking for – if the connection between me and the coaches was good. As soon as I talked with the coaches, it felt like home and like they were already my family, so that was probably the biggest factor.
For complete coverage of UTEP Volleyball, follow the Miners on social media at @UTEPVB (Instagram) and @UTEP_VB (Twitter), or visit the official home of UTEP Athletics at UTEPMiners.com.
