Volleyball
Favorite athlete: Kendall Pierce
Favorite team: Penn State Women’s Volleyball Team
Favorite memory competing in sports: Pulling out great wins, especially against Pennsbury junior year.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: During one of our matches, our libero thought it was her rotation to come out and it wasn’t. We ended up playing with five players and scored three points without anyone noticing we only had five players on the court.
Music on iPod: Everything but Country
Future plans: Go to college and study abroad
Words to live by: “If it’s important to you, you’ll find a way; if not, you’ll find an excuse.”
One goal before turning 30: Travel around Europe
One thing people don’t know about me: I was a gymnast for five years.
By Mary Jane Souder
Laura Cochrane loves to compete. Plain and simple.
“I’ve always been competitive,” the William Tennent senior said. “I need to win.
“I’m always determined to win, and I won’t stop until I do. I’m competitive in anything. I’d have to win a board game.”
Tennent volleyball coach Brian Bassler uses words like fiery and passionate to describe his standout right side hitter.
“I think if you asked some of the girls – before they got to know her, they would probably say she was a little intimidating, but she’s far from it,” Bassler said. “She’s one of the most passionate players we’ve ever had.
“She hates to lose. She’s one of those kids that is always diving on the floor, always trying to pick up everybody and get them going. That was something she did all year.”
While there’s no mistaking her fiercely competitive nature, it’s also impossible to miss the impact she had on this year’s squad.
“Our seniors did an awesome job this year of bringing in unity and really keeping everyone together,” Bassler said. “The younger girls had such a great experience due to a lot of that, and Laura was kind of the centerpiece. She’s like the main cog in all of that.”
Cochrane acknowledged that the season just completed was about a whole lot more than wins and losses. Rather, it was about a team that came together in a special way.
“It was like the best team ever,” the senior captain said. “We just all got along so well.
“If someone was doing bad, we wouldn’t be upset. We would say, ‘Come on, you got this,’ and they wouldn’t be offended by it. We would pick each other up, we would always be cheering each other on. I would get mad when we would lose games, but I wouldn’t be upset because I know my team played great.”
It’s an interesting perspective for someone doesn’t like to lose, and it’s clear the team’s camaraderie always trumped the outcome.
“I think this year was different,” Cochrane said. “Last year we weren’t really comfortable with each other, and it was a little bit different.
“Two years ago, when I was on the varsity, I was a little bit nervous because I was a sophomore with all the seniors. I was afraid to talk.”
With memories of that experience still fresh in her mind, Cochrane made sure everyone felt part of the team.
“She’s just somebody the girls looked up to,” Bassler said. “The freshmen coming in – I think it gave them someone to look up to and want to play like on the court, which is so important.”
******
Volleyball was a late entry on the scene for Cochrane. She spent five years competing in gymnastics, and basketball and softball were her other sports of choice.
Until, that is, she reached seventh grade at Klinger Middle School and was introduced to volleyball.
“My friend was playing since fifth grade, and she said, ‘We should all go out for the volleyball team,’” Cochrane said. “I had never played before.
“I started volleyball and I liked it so much better than the other sports that I quit all my other sports and started playing volleyball all the time, all year round. I don’t even know what it was. I just enjoyed hitting the ball and blocking the other team. It was just so much fun.”
One year later, she joined the club circuit and never left. For the past two years, she has competed with Crush.
“Last year we traveled a lot – we went to all the weekend tournament,” Cochrane said of a schedule that begins with practice in December and tournaments January through April.
“Playing club is extremely important because you’re only playing on the school team for two months and you’re off the rest of the time,” she said. “You need to be playing in order to get better and keep going.”
Bassler knew from the outset that Cochrane had the potential to develop into a standout player. By the time she was a sophomore, Cochrane was in the varsity lineup, and she never left, anchoring the right side of the net as a natural lefthander.
“We joke sometimes – if we could go back and have some game footage of when Laura and some of the other girls were in eighth grade and what they looked like by the time they were leaving through playing club ball and playing at Tennent – just the progression was amazing,” Bassler said. “Laura was our offside setter as well, so if our setter took the first pass, she would jump in. She has real good hands. That was something she really developed as time progressed. This year she played all the way around a little bit. We mainly played a 6-2, so that made it difficult, but she certainly had the talent to do it.”
Underscoring that fact was the first match that Cochrane had an opportunity to serve when she served for 19 straight points.
“She’s getting some decent looks from colleges, and I really hope she plays at the next level because I really think she could help a program,” Bassler said.
Off the court, Cochrane is active in school life at Tennent. She participated in Powder Puff and is leading the musical performance for the school’s annual Black and White competition.
Although she hopes to continue her volleyball career at the next level, that is secondary for Cochrane, who hopes to pursue a criminal justice major.
“The academic piece is way more important because volleyball isn’t going to be my job, so I need to stay focused on my work as well and keep doing well in school,” she said.
Criminal justice was always a major that appealed to Cochrane.
“My cousin was an FBI agent, and she used to tell me stories about it, and I thought it was so interesting,” she said. “I took a forensics class in 10th grade, and I was really interested in that.”
Cochrane has been involved in community service and has been active in an annual charity volleyball event to raise money for scholarships, and it’s her final high school season that evokes the fondest memories.
“It was just a fun year all the way around,” she said.
