May 19, 2000

The UC Santa Barbara Women's Volleyball program has added a transfer and an international player to the list of newcomers for the 2000 season, head coach Kathy Gregory announced today. Missy Blackshire (5-11 * OH * Capistrano Beach, CA), a transfer from Washington State and Simone Kuhn (6-2 * MB * Luzern, Switzerland) an international club player, have both signed to play for Gregory's team this fall.

The two are added to a list of three early signees, increasing the list of new signees for the 2000 season to five. Gregory signed Erica Menzel (5-9 * OH * Santa Barbara, CA) out of San Marcos High School, Francina Edmonds (6-1 * MB/OH * Jacksonville, Florida) of the Bolles School and Sarah Boogaard (5-10 * OH * Bellflower, CA) from Valley Christian High School in the early signing period.

Blackshire transfers to UCSB after two years at Washington State. "Missy Blackshire is a proven player from a strong conference, and brings experience and toughness with her to our program," said Gregory of her transfer from Washington State. "With the loss of Roberta Gehlke and Charlene Conley on the outside, we needed someone with the experience of 30-to-40 swings per match, and Missy brings us just that. I feel that she could step in a give us even 50-to-60 swings per match. She is a very fluid athlete, very quick, and has great jumping ability. She is ready for the challenge of coming in and starting immediately in our program."

"Simone Kuhn brings us great experience at the middle blocker position," said Gregory. "We are very happy to sign her because she will come in and replace Jutta Weissenborn, who we were disappointed to lose after she was accepted into pharmacy school in Germany. Losing two middle blockers from last year's team, we felt that we needed to sign an experienced middle, and Simone is not only experienced, she is a great attacking middle. She will be an impact player and I look for her to start immediately."

"We feel that with Missy and Simone we've filled gaps that we needed to, and they will both be impact players. I am very pleased to add these two to the other three we have signed. I expect these two to come in and start immediately, and along with Menzel who could earn a starting role, we have a great group of newcomers."

2000 Newcomers	 Yr.	Ht.	Pos.	Hometown (Previous School/ Club)
Missy Blackshire Jr.	5-11	OH	Capistrano Beach, CA (Washington St.)
Sarah Boogaard	 Fr.	5-10	OH	Bellflower, CA (Valley Christian HS)
Francina Edmonds Fr.	6-1	MB	Jacksonville, FL (The Bolles School)
Simone Kuhn	 So.	6-2	MB	Luzern, Switzerland (Konkordia BTV)
Erica Menzel	 Fr.	5-9	OH	Santa Barbara, CA (San Marcos HS)