When Baylor lost in the quarterfinals of the 2004 state volleyball tournament, Lara Newberry thought she had played her last match.

The senior, who went on to lead the Lady Red Raiders to their third straight softball state title the next spring, believed the rest of her athletic career would be spent as a shortstop.

At the time, Newberry barely knew what a libero was and could never have imagined her volleyball career would instead end four years later with two NCAA records at the position.

“I didn’t think I was going to play volleyball at all, much less in Chattanooga,” Newberry said. “I had played softball a lot longer, and people knew me more as a softball player. I was getting recruited, but eventually I told my parents I really didn’t want to play. I was just burnt out. I really didn’t even like it anymore.”

Newberry eventually signed a volleyball scholarship with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where coach Lisa Rhodes decided the player’s 5-foot-7 frame and court awareness would make her a perfect fit for a libero. The defensive specialist position wasn’t fully adopted by the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association until 2005 but had been introduced in NCAA play three years earlier.

“I didn’t really know I was going to be a libero until we started two-a-days,” Newberry said. “I didn’t even like it at first, because I was used to the front row. I had always enjoyed hitting and blocking more, because everyone always remembers the big kills. But obviously I got used to it and really started liking it.”

Newberry gave volleyball fans, coaches and players plenty to remember over the next four seasons. She was named the Southern Conference’s libero of the year in 2005 after playing in every match for the Lady Mocs and setting school and conference records with 736 digs as a freshman.

The numbers and accolades continued to pile up over the next three seasons for Newberry, who set an NCAA single-season record with 942 digs her junior year and led the nation with her average of 7.19 per set. She also set UTC’s all-time record that season, and last fall Newberry broke the NCAA mark with the 2,792nd dig of her college career.

She finished the season by leading the nation with her 777 digs and 6.76 per-set average, and Newberry’s final career dig total ended at 3,176, a record her coaches believe will stand for a long time.

“What an outstanding surprise and accomplishment that was,” Baylor volleyball coach Lynne Stopford said. “It’s very rare, especially for a libero, to have someone go in and start as a freshman.

“When you put everything together, a lot of things had to line up for her to be in position to break that record. It’s amazing, because when they do the (national) statistics, she’s going against players who are bigger and stronger, but the numbers don’t lie. She did it.”

Newberry was a four-year starter who played all the way around at Baylor, where she was a three-time all-state player. At UTC, she became the school’s second player to be named to the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s All-South Region Team, an honor she earned twice.

Newberry is on track to graduate from UTC with a degree in sociology, and she will begin helping Stopford coach the Baylor middle school team when the season begins in a few weeks.

“I got to see her play a lot this year, and it was really neat to see how she has evolved,” Stopford said. “Lara has always been competitive, but she really she came into her own and grew to love the sport. I know it was a hard decision for her to break away from softball, but I think maybe she knew something the rest of us didn’t.”