Melanie Hamerly Joins Volleyball Team
5/2/2005 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
May. 2, 2005
WACO, Texas - Baylor senior Melanie Hamerly (Orange, Texas), a member of the women's basketball national championship team, will join the Baylor volleyball team for the 2005 season, head coach Jim Barnes announced Monday.
Hamerly, a 6-foot-5 post player in basketball, will give the Bears added depth at middle blocker. The addition will help ease the loss of senior Adeline Meira (Sao Paulo, Brazil), who will redshirt the season after second knee surgery, which will be performed in two weeks. Meira ranked fourth in the Big 12 last season with 1.56 blocks per game.
"I'm happy to join the team - I just want to contribute any way I can and just be there to encourage my teammates," Hamerly said. "When basketball season was over, Coach Barnes asked me if I still wanted to play volleyball. I had thought about playing both basketball and volleyball, but I chose to focus on basketball, so I'm just blessed to have this opportunity."
Barnes had recruited Hamerly out of high school when he was the head coach at nearby Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. Hamerly decided to go to Baylor instead, where she earned four letters in basketball.
"I was really looking forward to working with her when I recruited her at Lamar," Barnes said. "She was a very talented player in high school and I believe she can really fit in and give us quality depth in the middle since we lost Adeline."
Hamerly practiced with the team last week and saw limited action in the Bears' final spring tournament Saturday, where they defeated Houston, TCU and Oklahoma and dropped a tightly contested match against LSU.
