March 16, 2006

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - As the Thundering Herd volleyball team prepares to defend its Conference USA title in 2006 while working during spring practice, the team voted Maggie Arias in as team captain and Chelsea Lazar and Stephanie Cahill were selected as assistant captains.

Replacing the 2005 senior class of Katie Stein, Nickie Sanlin and Amber Sims will be no easy task, but with the selection of Arias, Cahill and Lazar, the Herd is moving forward and preparing to defend its title.

"As we change our leadership, we believe our team has taken to the leadership of Maggie, Steph and Chelsea this spring," Marshall head coach Mitch Jacobs said. "It was practically a unanimous feel on the team that Maggie has earned the top spot and the balance in what each of these women bring in leadership should help us make a strong transition into 2006."

Marshall finished 2005 with a 26-6 record and won both the Conference USA Regular Season and Tournament titles. The Herd posted its most wins since 1980 and made its second NCAA Tournament appearance in team history. The Herd also graduated a senior class that had experienced four-straight 20-win seasons for the first time in the modern volleyball era at Marshall.

"Obviously we're going to miss our three seniors from last year," Jacobs said. "I think we did a great job of choosing Maggie and a great job of choosing balanced leadership for all the captains. I also feel like even though these three have been selected, we have six or seven players with outstanding leader qualities and they will hopefully keep stepping up and leading the team. We didn't become C-USA champs by only having a selected few people lead us, it's a whole team effort."

The most important role Arias will fulfill is the duty of replacing Stein as the floor captain. This means Arias is the only one allowed to talk to official during a match.

Arias, an Indianapolis, Ind. native will be a junior in 2006. She has been the teams libero for the past two seasons and finished last year with 435 digs, the fourth highest total in Marshall history.

Cahill ended 2006 as a third-team All-Conference USA selection and racked up the teams second highest kill total with 346 (3.23/game). The upcoming junior has started every match in her career at Marshall.

Lazar will look to fill the void left by graduating seniors Amber Sims and Nickie Sanlin in the middle for the Herd. In a reserve role in 2005, Lazar had 16 total blocks and 31 kills.

The Thundering Herd is set to release its 2006 schedule next week.