DWC junior volleyball middle hitter Erin Moseley
named to first team all-conference team
Moseley has many friends these days, but two of them are very special

 

Special because they have come about because of five surgeries to her right knee. The friends: Daniel Webster College trainer Ashleigh Lowe and her right knee brace.

 

And because of that she can state that "Adversity is my middle name, and you can add pain to that,"

 

Moseley, a native of Billerica, Mass., landed at the Daniel Webster College campus in 2004 transferring as a Division II scholarship player and was looking forward to playing in three sports, volleyball, basketball and softball. She got through the volleyball season and a third of the hoop season before she had to have a fifth surgery on her knee.

 

A powerful server who ranked in the top 10 in service aces a year ago, Moseley is just getting back into the groove after being cleared to participate in athletics at the start of the fall season. Her entire summer was spent rehabbing the knee so she could once again don the red, white and blue of the Eagles’ sports teams.

 

She was recently named to the first team all conference team by the coaches in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference. A second team choice a year ago, Moseley battled back from her fifth knee surgery to lead the Eagles in kills (275) and service aces (100) this year and do the same in the conference on a per game average. This marks the first all-conference selection for a volleyball player from Daniel Webster.

 

A stellar athlete in high school, Moseley had her first meeting with adversity in her junior year of high school when she suffered a complete tear of the ACL in nine different fragments. That was in February of 2002 and she had ACL reconstruction a month later and rehabbed herself back into playing condition by August of 2002.

 

She suffered another injury in the spring of 2003 and the surgery resulted in a screw being placed in her knee and that later got infected and had to be removed as it was "popping" through her skin.

 

In the fall of 2003 as a freshman at Franklin Pierce College, she suffered two meniscus tears and had arthroscopic surgery to repair that damage. That effectively ended her season at FPC and the next year transferred to DWC and was able to lead the Eagles on the volleyball court.

 

Unable to move at full speed due to her aching knee, it was decided she should have surgery again. In March of 2005 she again had arthroscopic surgery, this time removing and repairing cartilage, reshape the patella, reshape the tibia fibula and a drilling technique used to stimulate cartilage growth.

 

Though labeled arthroscopic, it was major surgery and the rehab was the longest and most painful of her collegiate career and covered the beginning of May through the summer months. In the fall of this year, she was given the clearance to return to active collegiate athletics.

 

Through her arduous rehabilitation, Moseley spent many a day with a rehab specialist and hr new-found friend, trainer Ashleigh Lowe. While Moseley had developed really close relationships with Lowe and her brace, little did she know another close friend would also come into the picture? She refers to it as her E-Stem or portable electronic stimulator which she uses before games and practices to prepare her knee for athletic competition.

And then, at the close of any athletic activity, it's another pain alleviator - ice - which Moseley says could even be considered as another "close friend."

 

Moseley admits to her close friends that she is constantly in pain and on a scale of 1 to 10, reaches a level of 3 or 4 every second on the clock.

 

Just why would anyone want to endure that? As Moseley explained, "I'm a completive person. I love the sports I play and since I have eligibility, I want to make use of my entire collegiate experience, in the classroom and on the court or softball field."

 

While Moseley spends a lot of time in the training room, some of the flight students in her dorm often come by to see Erin to get a sort of weather forecast. "The pain becomes so bad on some days I can tell when it will rain and if it will be humid," Moseley laughed. "These future pilots can get an early handle on what to prepare for by me knee," she said.

 

Erin's biggest supporters are her mom and dad, Judy and John Moseley of Sterling, Mass., who travel to every athletic competition their daughter competes in, be it in Nashua, Bennington, Vt., or New Haven, Conn. They want to be there for Erin and be her biggest cheerleaders, knowing full well what she's gone through to just step onto a court again.

 

Erin is very happy at Daniel Webster as she knows she is one of the building blocks to help make the women's teams very competitive. "I want the other schools to know that we won't be pushovers and that soon we will be pushing over," she said. She is involved in the recruiting process with her volleyball coaches, Greg Andruskevich and Staci Branon and her basketball coach Cori Hughes, who she has known for a long time.

 

Academically she is elated to be at Daniel Webster and being a sports management major. "I just love it here. The sport management program is preparing me for my future career. We even got Gillette Stadium and work with the Patriots" she said. "What an experience that was and it's how the program works all the time."

 

But dealing with the pain from her knee sometimes makes her think of why she does it. Instead of dwelling on the ache, I focus on why I want to play. I'm so much happier when I'm competing and I know that eventually that will end once I graduate. So why not enjoy it?" she asked.

 

And a lot of other students at DWC are enjoying her playing. The first home game was attended by the largest crowd ever to attend a volleyball game and a DWC team victory. "I don't put myself before the team." Moseley said. My teammates also help me go play through the pain. Without them, I wouldn't be able to play.

 

Later she summed it up with her teammates as also joining that list of special friends.