For Love of the Game

Accomplished player aspires to new goals.

WHEN JESSICA D'AURIA, then a junior on the Maine Maritime Academy volleyball team, lifted the North Atlantic Conference (NAC) Championship trophy above her head on November 9, 2019, she never imagined she might have just played her final competitive volleyball match for the Mariners inside of Margaret Chase Smith Gymnasium.

As things began to unfold around the globe with the COVID-19 pandemic, and knowing the 2020 spring athletic season had already been impacted and cut short earlier in the year, D’Auria started to understand the potential of the pandemic’s impact on her senior season.

“I was pretty distraught after finding out (that competition would be suspended this year), it felt like my heart had been ripped out. It was hard hearing that information because it is my senior year and I had all of these big hopes and aspirations and things that I wanted to accomplish this season.”

D’Auria had a tremendously successful career on the court for the Mariners leading up to her senior season. The Hopewell Junction, New York native has been part of three championship teams that traveled to three NCAA Tournaments, she earned NAC Rookie of the Year honors in 2017, and continued to garner honors throughout her career, but this season team and individual success have taken different forms.

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