With a volleyball in her hands and her sister’s door in front of her, Erica Gerth was molded into a fearsome volleyball player.

Gerth, a junior outside hitter, wasn’t always a power-hitting force on Eastern’s volleyball team. It took a lot of hard work and the patience from her family members.

“I started hitting at an early age,” Gerth said. “I would hit volleyballs against my sister’s door as hard as I could for practice.”

Her powerful spikes have made her one of the biggest offensive threats in the Ohio Valley Conference and even Eastern volleyball history.

As a junior, Gerth is already a member of the 1,000 kill club with 1,036 career kills, ranking her 10th all-time. Her 22 and 23 kills in last week’s matches earned her co-offensive player of the week in the OVC and this week’s Top Cat.

Being on the opposite end of Gerth’s spikes have not worked out so well for some of her past opponents. Anyone standing in her way could end up with an ice pack in their hand.

“In 8th grade I went up to hit the ball and it was a perfect set and I hit the girl right in the head and she fell backwards,” Gerth said. “I felt kind of bad, but we had it on video and later it looked kind of funny.”

Though Gerth displays excellent skill at her position, Eastern coach Brenda Winkeler said Gerth does not have the prototypical frame for an outside hitter. Winkeler said her raw talent and athletic ability easily make up for it.

“Erica is very small for an outside hitter,” Winkeler said. “Her quickness and arm speed make up for that. A lot of it is just natural, but some people have a natural gift and do nothing with it.”

While Winkeler gives Gerth’s arm speed and athletic ability the credit for her success, Gerth wants to hand some of those accolades to her setters.

“(Nicki Fowler and Leanne Kreps) have done really well this year,” Gerth said. “Obviously we couldn’t be getting our kills if they didn’t put it in the right spots.”

With so much focus put on producing points, Gerth came into Eastern with little knowledge of how to prevent them.

Gerth wasn’t known as a defensive player when she entered Winkeler’s system her freshman year, but her coach said all of that has changed.

The El Paso, Ill., native has come a long way with her defensive skills, and now even holds the single match record for digs in a game with 39, which she set a few weeks ago against Austin Peay.

Winkeler said being a good thinker is what worked against Gerth in this aspect of her game.

“She would try to think too much and you can’t think because the ball is going 100 mph,” Winkeler said. “You just have to react. In that aspect she really came a long way.”

Another thing Gerth has worked on is being a vocal leader on the court. Her freshman and sophomore years she had senior leaders around to do the talking.

But this year, Gerth is only one of three upperclassmen, making her an obvious choice to take over as a team leader.

“We have talked about that all the time this year,” Winkeler said. “We don’t expect her to be a cheerleader, but she has definitely picked up on that.”

The junior standout has helped lead her team to a 3-1 conference record thus far, and sees Eastern only getting better.

“The one match we lost could have gone either way,” Gerth said. “We can be in the top three easily.”

And even a scarier thought for OVC teams next year – Gerth returning as a senior on a team losing only one player.

“We are going to be the same team, but even better,” Gerth said.