Date: Fri 08-Nov-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KIMH

Quick Words:

Kristin-Denninger-Feature

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Kristin Denninger Feature

B Y K IM J. H ARMON

Looking back it seems like nothing more than one 3-0 win in a string of 3-0

wins, but this one particular 3-0 win over Jonathan Law on a Saturday morning

in October was not only a defining moment in the season for the Newtown High

School volleyball team, it was a defining moment in the career of Kristin

Denninger.

The first two years of her career had been non-descript, played in the shadows

of girls like Lysha Lockwood and Alison Stephenson, and last year she was a

somewhat inconsistent middle hitter on a team that struggled to be simply

mediocre.

This year, though, as a senior co-captain, Kristin, now 17, expected to be

good.

It just took a little while.

"I remember the Jonathan Law game well," said Kristin. "Just in warmups, all

of a sudden everything started to click. Up to that point, I had been really

early because my timing wasn't right for the outside hitting. I was still

leaving when I should have for a middle hit. I don't know why, but it all just

clicked."

That feeling, that state of being, is something she expected of herself - and

the team, to be sure - in 1995.

"Last year was the first year where I only played middle and that took a lot

of getting used to," said Kristin, "because I had been used to playing all

across the front row. I wasn't consistent, I don't think, but I always find

things wrong with what I'm doing."

The Lady Nighthawks - then called the Lady Indians - struggled through a

season that had more peaks and valleys than the roller coasters at Great

Adventure. It was a confusing season where surprising victories followed

impossible losses and in it all Kristin never quite clicked.

"I just hoped that I would get better this year," said Kristin, "and all the

work in the winter and summer really helped."

In the winter she played Junior Olympic volleyball, like many of her

teammates, and in the summer she played in the Nutmeg Games and in the middle

of all of that she worked every day with her J.O. coach on running, lifting

and jump training.

It would have seemed like Kristin would be poised on the bring of a break out

season, where she carried the team like she no doubt expected to as a junior,

but then the winds of fate threw some good fortune towards the Lady Nighthawks

and Kristin Denninger.

On those winds of fate came Dee Conley, a midwestern transfer who was named

All-Conference Honorable Mention as a sophomore in Ohio, and Dee - like

Kristin - was a middle hitter.

All of a sudden it was a clogged position, counting the presence of sophomore

Jenn Corkum, and before new coach Nell-Ayn Lynch could decide who to move to

the outside, Kristin sort of volunteered.

And on the outside, she thrived.

"I liked the middle," she said, "because I love to block and when you play

outside you don't get to block as much, but I like hitting on the outside

better."

Her presence on the outside gave setter Leigh Hoppmeyer three options on

almost every pass up from the back row and, with Conley in the middle, it gave

opposing teams two places to defend and almost no chance.

And that was one of the many reasons why the Lady Nighthawks had that 10-match

win streak early in the season and why they are presently sitting on a 20-3

record heading into a CIAC Class L second round match with Southington.

Things have been going very well for the team, and for Kristin, who has a

strong will and an even stronger drive to be as good a player as she possibly

can.

"I want to force myself to play hard," said Kristin. "I want to be sore when

I'm done. I want everyone else to play like that and I want everyone to have

the same drive that I have. And a lot of times, we all do."

And no matter the accolades that others may place on her after a game well

played, the senior holds herself under a harsher light than most and sometimes

she finds feelings of satisfaction a little bit illusive.

"Sometimes I'm very happy," Kristin admitted. "I can find specific moments

where everything is working - like the hitting and the digging and I'm all

over the floor - but I hold myself to a higher standard than everyone else. I

judge myself more than anyone else. People will come up to me and say, `boy,

great game,' and I would think, no it wasn't."

But even she can admit that a 20-3 record and the runner-up status Newtown

earned in the South-West Conference, was as close to The Dream as the Lady

Nighthawks had hoped to be.

It anything but like that in 1995.

"I would get really frustrated last year," said Kristin. "A lot of times I

went home angry with myself because I always thought if I had done something

better than it maybe it would have come out different."

But with new personnel and a new coach, attitudes - and outlooks - changed.

"Early on," said Kristin, "Nell was trying to tell us that we had to learn

that we are better and that we don't know how to lose. It took a couple games

to get it into our heads that, wow, we really could do this."

But in sports and academics, Kristin, a new inductee into the National Honor

Society, knows that good is sometimes not good enough. That is an attitude

that she will take with her to college . . . and beyond.

"I never think that anything is quite good enough," she said. "I know that I

can always be better. I'm never going to be perfect."