Variety is the spice of life, and Mississippi State’s volleyball casserole is spicy to the taste.
This year’s squad features six international players, as well as one international third-year coach.
Assistant coach Jozsef Forman, a 1989 graduate of Semmelweis University, was born in Bonyhad, Hungary, and made quite a name for himself throughout his 13 years of coaching.
Two of the teams he coached in his stint were Hungarian national teams.
Forman moved to America in 2003 to coach at Baylor University and then came to Mississippi State in 2004.
The year was head coach Tina Seals’ first season, and she asked Forman to join her in rebuilding the MSU volleyball program.
“One of the main reasons I offered Jozsef the job when I came on board was that I knew we would need an international flavor at first while we’re building the program here until we get our name established,” Seals said. “We’ve been able to bring in some good international players with good ball control while we’re building, and that’s helped our program go to the next level.”
In Seals’ third year at the helm of MSU volleyball, they have filled just under half the team with girls from outside the U.S. border.
MSU’s lone senior, Osolya “Orshi” Kriegel, hails from Jaszbereny, Hungary, and attended Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary’s largest university in 2002 and 2003.
She has worked her way into a starting role on the MSU roster as an outside hitter and currently leads the team in kills.
Orshi’s sister, Eva, also hails from Jaszbereny but attended Goldollo University in Jaszbereny.
Currently a junior, Eva has developed into MSU’s starting setter, chalking up 978 assists on the year and averaging 11 per game. Eva has moved into fifth all-time among MSU assist leaders.
“There are a lot of things different here [in America],” Orshi said. “Hungary’s not a rich country, so everything’s different. University campuses in Hungary are different than Mississippi State. They are not as nice. The overall environment [at MSU] is everything we could want.”
MSU’s third-most familiar international face comes at the position of outside hitter in Cristina Jucan.
Jucan hails from Cluj, Romania, and now serves as an outside hitter on the Bulldog roster, rotating at the position with Jamie Joyner and Martina Gregusova.
Gregusova is MSU’s fourth-most prominent international player and is quickly becoming more noticed on the court.
Gregusova, from Nitra, Slovakia, has been named SEC Freshman of the Week three times this season, leading MSU offensively in the last seven consecutive matches.
She sat out earlier this season with a knee injury but has rebounded nicely, earning a spot on Seals’ starting roster as of late.
An off-season signee, freshman setter Emily Tooker is from Gladstone, Australia, and MSU’s most recent signee is freshman middle hitter Ioana Demian.
Demian, like Jucan, was recruited out of Romania, being from Baia Mare, Cristina’s birthplace.
Demian has started in nine of MSU’s matches on the season and has contributed with 43 kills and 33 blocks.
Demian has made friends with fellow Romanian Cristina Jucan and has relied on her coming though the transitional phase of coming to America.
“Cristina has always been with me,” Demian said. “She walked around with me and showed me the buildings and where my classes were on campus. She introduced me to a lot of people who became friends.”
Demian says she had to overcome several cultural obstacles when she came from Romania to America.
“My first few weeks here were a little tough because of the accents,” Demian said. “I couldn’t really understand people because of their accent, and they couldn’t understand me because of mine. It was a little tough, but now it’s OK.”
She also adds that she didn’t really like American food and ate pasta for the first few weeks upon arriving.
According to Demian, the Bulldogs’ reception of her was very different from harsh receptions she received back home.
“It’s a big difference from America’s mentality and Romania’s mentality,” Demian said. “I’m really comfortable with the girls here on the court. I didn’t think that I would want to play in the first few weeks. They welcomed me though and considered me one of them. It didn’t matter if I made mistakes.”
Seals says that recruiting internationally is no easy process, though reaping the benefits of international talent is well worth the work.
“First of all, with Joszef being here, he usually goes out and finds the European players,” Seals said. “Then, we have to see if they’re interested.
“The hard part is that we have to get all their tests taken and all the paperwork done, and if they don’t speak English, it’s that much harder. It just doesn’t happen overnight.”
The combination of American and international cultures, though providing the team with a neat opportunity, occasionally raises some challenges for the squad.
Seals doesn’t believe the team isn’t divided into two factions, one being from America and the other not, but instead the girls usually group together based on their home country and state.
“However, I do stress that when we’re on the court, we are a team, and the girls are not allowed to hang with their cliques,” Seals said. “They have to get to know everyone when they’re inside the gym.
“Who they choose to spend a lot of their time with outside is up to them, and due to their similarities, I’d imagine they’d spend more time with friends from the same country.”
Seals also says that though the state of Mississippi is not big on high school volleyball, she doesn’t just look at certain places to recruit solid players.
“I just want 12 good, talented, SEC-level players, and it doesn’t matter where we get them from,” Seals said. “If they come from Mississippi, America, elsewhere, it doesn’t matter.
“We want to put the best team on the court as possible to represent Mississippi State. I think we’ve done that. We have a great group of Americans, and a great group of international students.”