SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — For senior Cayla Morphew, it was her last road trip with her Dominican University of California volleyball teammates and it was to Hawai'i. Her parents had joined her there. Her team won its first match of the season.

All was good.

Then Morphew had to leave them all behind. She boarded a flight to the mainland to complete a mandatory nursing clinical at San Francisco General Hospital followed by consecutive days of mandatory certification classes in Oakland.

Good-bye, paradise. Hello, reality.

However, if there is one thing Morphew has learned in her four-year volleyball career at Dominican, you have to be quick on your feet. That's a quality she will carry with her into her nursing career.

“This is perfect,” Morphew said, smiling. “I'm very prepared.”

As Morphew readies for the final volleyball match of her Dominican career — Friday night vs. Cal Baptist in the Conlan Center —  she thinks back to her four-year stint knowing she met the difficult challenge of being a student-athlete presented with the demands that come with being a nursing student in a reputed program.

“I've dedicated 10 years to volleyball. It's been a huge chunk of my life. It's going to be a chapter of my life closing,” said Morphew. “But I'm also excited because now I can start a new career. That was my volleyball career and now I can start my nursing career.”

Morphew's Dominican volleyball career began when, as a senior at Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park,  her Absolute Volleyball Club teammates in Marin – Gabby Pecora and Brooke Swingle – convinced her to join them playing volleyball with the Penguins. Morphew had an interest in nursing – her grandmother Roberta was a nurse – so Dominican seemed like a great fit.
In her freshman year, when she commuted daily to school from Rohnert Park, she led the team in sets played and blocks. Last year she had a career-high 19 kills in a match and was named to the PacWest Academic All-Conference team.

But the highlight of Morphew's career came as a sophomore when she had eight kills, eight digs and two service aces in helping the Penguins defeat Academy of Art for their first victory in NCAA Division II.

Otherwise, Morphew's time at Dominican has been a blur of ups and downs and comings and goings. Running from class to get to practices and games on time.

“It's hard. But I find it's really useful,” Morphew said. “ I'm sure in the future, especially in nursing, there are going to be times when I'm not sure what's going to be going on with my schedule and how to deal with things. I'll have to resort back to my time management skills. I have to be so organized. I make lists of everything I have to do every day.”

Leaving Hawai'i earlier this month in the middle of a road trip was not at the top of her to-do list, but Morphew managed to pull herself away and do her duty. Her parents, Pat and Phil, drove her to the Honolulu airport for her flight home. They stayed and watch the Lady Penguins play on the North Shore and the Big Island while their daughter put in her time on a 12-hour shift filling out reports, giving medication and injections and doing general nursing procedures in a hospital.

“It was sad for me,” said Morphew. “It felt like I was abandoning them.”

Fortunately, Morphew's mother sent texts to her daughter with every scoring update and lineup change in the games at BYU-Hawaii and University of Hawai'i-Hilo and teammates Ashlee Sand and Katy Batchelder provided text messages with post-game commentary.

Of course, Morphew was coming off eight-hour classes in Advanced Cardio Life Support in Oakland and falling into bed when she got home in San Rafael.  She longed to be back in Hawaii, providing senior leadership, but she had to rely on messages to keep her connected.

“I was really exhausted at night, even at 10 o'clock,” Morphew said. “They were texting me at one in the morning after the game. I wouldn't look at them until the next day.”

They were all reunited when the team and parents returned on Sunday and now Morphew is looking forward to Senior Night when she and her family will celebrate her career and contributions to Dominican volleyball. She will reflect on the friendships she has made and the life skills and patience she has acquired.

“Cayla has made the transition from NAIA to a higher level of competition in the NCAA and made the transition to a new coach all in a short period of time and that's not easy,” said Dominican second-year Head Coach Gayle Stammer. “I appreciate all of her hard work and dedication to the volleyball program here and admire how she has succeeded as an outstanding student-athlete. I'm really proud of her.”

Once volleyball is over, Morphew will shift her focus to studying for NCLEX exams next semester before possibly pursuing her masters degree to become a nurse anesthetist, which means she would need two to three years of ICU or CCU experience.

Volleyball , in some way, has prepared her for that.