To end it's spectacular 1998 season, the Caltech Men's Club Volleyball Team will be playing in a UCSD invitational all day saturday. At the tournament, the team will say goodbye to the best player the team has ever had, Andreas Masuhr. Andreas, a graduate student in Materials Science has played on the team for four years and coached it for the '95-'96 and '96-'97 seasons. Andreas' wife, Susanne Masuhr, no stranger to volleyball herself, is the head coach this year. She has managed to rack up the most impressive record in Caltech club volleyball history: 16-2. As you might suspect, the two losses came in matches that Andreas couldn't attend.
Originally from Germany, Andreas was a member of the German Army Volleyball team, and for his tenure there ate, drank, and slept volleyball. Now at caltech, he has been the bedrock upon which the team has built its success. Playing at outside hitter and opposite, Andreas is a 'go to' hitter. When another team's blocking has shut down the Caltech attack, or when momentum has swung the wrong way, he can be counted on to put the ball away with such force or dink it with such finesse that even the most stubborn defense is hard pressed to bring it back up. From the front or the back row, he can go around or over as many blockers as the opponents care to put up. Said this year's assistant coach Aaron Kiely, "Andreas is truly spectacular to watch. I've seen our opponents completely re-arrange their blocking strategies to try to stop his attacks. It never works. I don't know what it takes to stop Andreas. Fortunately, neither do our opponents."
Aaron also recruited Andreas and coached him during his rookie year. "94-95 was the first time I coached a real team. Pretty soon it became obvious that there wasn't much I could teach Andreas, and that he knew more about volleyball than I could ever hope to learn. That's when I had the bright idea of asking him to coach, and he did for the next two seasons." As a coach, he shared his experience with the younger members of the team. "Andreas was the first coach I had on the men's team..." said Scott Van Essen "...I credit him with most of my recent development as a volleyball player." During games, he was able to both play as a starter and observe the other team and make adjustments as a coach.
Andreas is a truly gifted athlete, one of the best that Caltech has ever had. It has been a privilege to have played with him and it will be a loss to the team and the community when he graduates in June.
If the game is too intense for you, you can get the scores on the web at http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~vball/VB.home.html
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