Kiefer leads Cardinal attack
Don’t ask Kara Kiefer anything about the state of Missouri. A look of frustration much like the look when she makes a mistake on the volleyball court quickly crosses her face.
Fortunately for North Idaho College and coach Brett Taylor, these moments don’t occur all that much.
One thing Kiefer does know is that West Plains, Mo., is a long way from Rathdrum, Idaho, where she was a three-sport, 12-letter winning standout at Lakeland High School.
Starting today, Kiefer and the Cardinals are in the “Show Me” state, where they hope to show off their talents at the NJCAA Tournament.
It’s unchartered territory for NIC. Today’s opening-round match against the host school, Southwest Missouri State University-West Plains, is NIC’s first appearance at the tournament.
But, according to Kiefer, it is something the Cardinals have thought about all season. And they got an assist when national power College of Southern Idaho was banned from the regional tournament for carrying too many foreign players on scholarship.
“Our ultimate goal was to make it to nationals and now we want to prove that we belong,” Kiefer said. “We started the season stressing one game at a time and then build and build. We’re peaking at the right time and that’s so nice to see.”
Kiefer’s resume at NIC is impressive. The sophomore outside hitter leads the Cards in kills with 347 (5th in Scenic West Athletic Conference) and had 407 digs (4th in SWAC). She was named first team All-SWAC this year (second team as a freshman) and was Most Valuable Player of the Region 18A Tournament.
And she did it while constantly battling injuries. While she says she is 100 percent now, scar tissue from an ACL she tore during her junior year at Lakeland and a stiff back last year have made her a frequent visitor to the training room and made it easy for her to focus on a goal this season.
“One of my goals at the beginning of the season was to be all-conference,” she said. “But really I just wanted to stay healthy. Last year, I suffered with a back injury at the end of the season. There have been days when I’ve come out of the training room with five ice packs on my body.”
Kiefer hopes to continue her career at a four-year school. She is currently drawing interest from the University of Dayton and James Madison University. She hopes to turn a few heads at nationals, where many recruiters will be on hand.
“I talked to the assistant coach at Dayton and we had a really good conversation,” Kiefer said. “But it’s still really up in the air. I hope to get some contacts at nationals.”
Surprisingly, Kiefer’s first experience with volleyball – as a third grader – did not leave a good taste in her mouth.
“I went to camp at Lakeland High School and I didn’t like it,” she said. “I didn’t go back the next year.”
But she did return the following year and fell in love with the sport. And Taylor, who has coached her over the past four years – two years of club volleyball before NIC – is glad she did. In fact, the two have developed a great deal of mutual respect.
“She’s the kind of kid who does all the right things,” Taylor said. “She is just an awesome athlete.”
“He’s very intense,” Kiefer said of Taylor. “He yells a lot and I had a hard time handling that in the beginning, but now I’m more used to it. It’s never personal and a lot of the time, he doesn’t even know what he said when the match is over. He’s the type of coach that if he went to a four-year college to coach, I would follow him. I have that much respect for him.”
For now, they are content to follow each other to nationals where Kiefer hopes maybe the people of Missouri will learn a bit about Idaho.