While training in the summer before the 2024 season, Marist’s senior setter Claire Lewis made one awkward move that would ultimately cost her what could have been her final season of volleyball.
“I thought maybe something minor was wrong, but nothing crossed my mind about missing the season at all,” said Lewis.
Lewis missed her entire senior season due to injury, but her story is far from over; the setter will return to Marist next year as a graduate student, ready to finish her career on her terms.
After consulting with doctors at home in Georgia and at Marist, Lewis found out she tore her meniscus. Undergoing meniscus repair surgery before the season, recovery came with a six-month return timetable, forcing Lewis to miss the full season–but she had the option to use it as a redshirt year and come back the following season as a fifth-year graduate student.
“I had no idea whether I wanted to keep playing or not,” said Lewis. “I was obviously scared of coming back. You never know if you’re going to be the same as you were.”
Lewis told her teammates that it would be her final season, but admitted it might have been more of a coping mechanism for her rather than the truth. During warmups of Marist’s final road match of the season at Quinnipiac, Marist head coach Sean Byron casually asked Lewis: “So, are you coming back?” He told Lewis, who was caught off guard by the question, to just think about it.
“Deep down, I knew I needed to play again, just like, have some sort of closure with the sport,” said Lewis. “I’ve been playing it my whole life and it’s a great opportunity. This is a great school. I love it here, and it was going to be hard to leave in the spring.”
While closing out her career on the court, Lewis will be working towards her master’s in education in a 16-month online program through Marist. Unsure of whether she wants to teach close to Marist upon graduating or return home to Georgia to do so, Lewis now has an extra year to figure out her future.
“I mean, the future is scary, and delaying that another year is always beneficial for me,” laughed Lewis. “But I missed playing so much and we weren’t too successful this year, but I’m optimistic about next year.”
Heading into the 2024 season, Marist planned to use Lewis in a 6-2 offensive scheme, as opposed to the 5-1 that they had run in previous seasons. Lewis was Marist’s setter in the 5-1 in 2023, which requires one setter to set five hitters throughout the six rotations. In a 6-2, two setters split the setting duties, allowing for three hitters to be present in the front row at all times.
In the offseason, Marist added Jamison White, a graduate transfer from the University of New Hampshire. In her time as a Wildcat White played both setter and right-side hitter, racking up 93 kills and 394 assists, proving to be a serviceable asset in both hitting and setting. At Marist, Byron planned for her to do both, setting in a 6-2 and being an option to hit right-side. Lewis’s injury caused Marist to audible.
“We were forced into a 5-1 and I’m not sure we had the number of right sides to play,” said Byron.
In a season full of changes and turnover–Marist graduated six seniors and had two other hitters leave the program–the Red Foxes struggled. Lewis was set to be one of a few holdovers, but her injury changed the trajectory of Marist’s season. They lost 16 of their first 17 games before ditching the White-led 5-1 in favor of a 6-2 with White and sophomore setter Kaitlyn Owens.
Marist only won two more games the rest of the way, finishing 3-25, their most losses in a season since 1995. As one of only three seniors, Lewis did her best to impact the team from the sideline.
“As a senior, you’re supposed to lead, and I feel like it was really hard for me to take on that role on the bench,” said Lewis. “You have to gain the respect of your teammates first, and I couldn’t really do that with all the underclassmen so that definitely sucked.”
Coming off another successful regular season that resulted in an early postseason exit in 2023, Marist hoped to start the season off on the right foot. In their first tournament of the year in Norfolk, VA, the Red Foxes were swept three times in two days, only keeping two of nine sets within ten points. At the end of the weekend, Lewis tried to hold the team to the same standards that she would have had she been on the court, requesting a players-only meeting after a match.
“Our first week in the preseason we were just dreadful. She asked the staff to leave to have a conversation,” said Byron. “As a coach, you can yell and scream at and try and motivate them, but at the end of the day, players have to play.”
In a heated conversation, Lewis called her teammates out, saying the effort in the tournament was unacceptable. This proved to be just the first of many instances where Lewis became an extension of the coaching staff.
“I feel like the role I had to take on this year was kind of just being the outlet for everyone, and just like being there for everyone and making someone laugh when they needed to because it was a tense season,” added Lewis.
The coaching staff had a blueprint for how Lewis could contribute to the team, thanks to former Marist setter McKinley Fox who ended her career with the fourth most assists in school history (2,957). Lewis spent her first year at Marist as Fox’s backup, learning from her on the court. As a graduate student, Fox served on the Marist coaching staff in 2023, when Lewis starred as the Red Foxes’ starting setter. The transition from playing to coaching her former teammates proved to be tough on Fox.
“I knew that she struggled a lot and I never really understood,” said Lewis. “But now I’m like ‘God this is the worst thing ever’, since you still have the early mornings and everything. She took it well too so I knew I had to do the same thing.”
“I had to choose whether I wanted to be the positive one that everyone comes to or if I wanted to sulk all year,” added Lewis.
Additionally, Lewis’s time on the sideline not only helped the team; it in turn added a new perspective for her.
“Junior year it was a struggle to wake up for the 7 a.m. practice… but now, I won’t take any of that for granted because it can all be taken away very quickly,” said Lewis.
Not only did missing a season give Lewis a nice appreciation for the sport, but it provided her a unique experience to watch Marist’s crop of new underclassmen hitters.
“That’s one of the things that was good for Claire this year because we had so many new players, is to see how they responded to Jamison [White] and what worked and what didn’t,” said Byron.
In 2024, Marist’s top three leaders in killers were all newcomers to the program. Sophomore outside hitter Sara Dasic, a transfer from Indian River State College, led the team, with freshmen outside hitter Taylor Miller and middle hitter Sarah Bumstead following in second and third. Though the young trio of hitters failed to lead Marist to a MAAC Tournament appearance, they progressed leaps and bounds throughout their first year in Poughkeepsie.
The underclassmen hitters started playing their best volleyball by the season’s end, offering a promising sign for the future. Despite not being on the court with them, Lewis gained valuable insight just from observing from the bench.
“It’s definitely more beneficial now that I see what works and what doesn’t, and I have all of spring to build that connection before we come back in the fall,” said Lewis.
If all goes to plan, Lewis will be fully cleared to participate by the beginning of February. She will be slowly integrated back into the swing of things, where the setter can start to create on-court relationships with her newer teammates.
The Red Foxes will benefit from Lewis’s play on the court and the leadership she developed this past season. Marist has already announced four commits for the 2025 season, including fellow setter Caelyn Dumas, who can look to Lewis and her vast experiences on and off the court for guidance.
“I think she’ll add a lot of perspective to those kids, and it’s nice when you have that perspective come from a senior grad student that has been there, that has gone through it,” said Byron.
Though the 2024 season provided little on-court success, the Red Foxes have a bright future thanks to their young contributors who progressed drastically through the course of the two-and-a-half-month season. Now, they will benefit from having a full offseason to develop together, as well as the addition of Lewis.
“To be able to have Claire right the ship a little bit will really help,” said Byron.
When Lewis takes the floor for her first match next August, it will be for the first time in over 21 months, the last being Marist’s MAAC Tournament Quarterfinal loss on Nov. 17, 2023. In the five-set loss to the Iona Gaels, 10 Red Foxes stepped on the court; Lewis is now the only one who remains.
Now, Lewis is the bridge between the previous era of Marist volleyball which regularly saw them finish at the top of the conference, to a new era for the program.
Edited by Dan Aulbach
Graphic: Quinn Difiore (with photos from Marist Athletics)
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