For the past two years, Otterbein University junior Tabatha Piper has had only 48 hours to make the transition from playing collegiate volleyball to basketball. This year the time lapse will be even shorter with the volleyball team qualifying for the NCAA Division III tournament. The volleyball team opened the tournament against DePauw on Nov. 14 at Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, Ill. With a win, the Cardinals would play either Webster University or top-seeded Hope College in the second round on Friday, Nov. 15 with the winner advancing the regional finals on Saturday, Nov. 16. Over 220 miles away, the women’s basketball team opens its season in the Franklin College tournament in Franklin, Ind. with the Cardinals playing DePauw Nov. 15 and Denison on Nov. 16. “It’s crazy,” says the 5-foot-11 setter, who was a first-team All-Ohio Athletic Conference selection. “The two seasons have never overlapped before but we have it all arranged.” Piper plans to stay with the Cardinals as long as they are still alive in the volleyball tournament. If the team is eliminated on Nov. 14 or 15, she will jump in a car with her parents, Teresa and Wendell Piper and drive to Indiana and play with the basketball team. The transition in seasons is nothing new for Piper. When she was a student at Big Walnut High School in Sunbury, Piper would go from volleyball in the fall to basketball in the winter and softball in the spring. When it came time for college, Piper wasn’t ready to give up being a multiple sport athlete. Her parents encouraged her to try playing both basketball and volleyball as a freshman to see if she would like it. She talked things over with volleyball coach Monica McDonald and women’s basketball coach Connie Richardson and neither objected. The key to doing both sports, according to Piper, is being in the right mindset. “When I’m in that sport, that’s the number one thing I’m focusing on,” Piper says. “(However) I occasionally find myself shooting hoops and playing basketball during volleyball season. I’m never not doing anything.” The volleyball team has two other athletes who play multiple sports. Sophomore defensive specialist Gracie Staten also plays guard for the basketball team and redshirt freshman outside hitter Maddy Shelley plans on playing softball this spring. McDonald estimates fewer than 10 percent of the Division III athletes play more than one sport. “Everyone here at Otterbein believes in the Division III philosophy, which is being very community oriented and student focused,” says McDonald, whose team was 26-7 overall after losing to Mount Union 25-13, 25-22, 25-20 in an Ohio Athletic Conference semifinal on Nov. 8. “The best experience for Tabatha was to let her play with both teams. “I’m the lucky one. I get her first, which is nice. Connie has to go through the preseason without her and catch her up to speed once the season starts.” The split decision seems to have benefited both programs. As a forward for the basketball team, she averaged 9.6 points and 6.8 rebounds and earned second-team All-OAC honors as a sophomore. On the volleyball court, Piper became the first Otterbein player to be voted onto the All-American team when she was named as a third-team selection last year. She broke the school record for career assists in a 25-15, 23-25, 22-25, 25-19, 15-10 win over Capital on Nov. 2, passing the previous record of 3,229 held by 2002 graduate Brook Cann. “Each game my mom would tell me ‘You need this many more assists,’” says Piper, who has 3,333 career assists after the Mount Union loss. “(Against Capital,) every time I would come in, a player would tell me ‘You have five more.’ “I had mixed feelings about the record at first (since I broke the record while losing the second game) but afterward I was pretty happy that I had reached that goal. I’m proud to have my name up there in the record books and hopefully, it will stay there for a couple of years.” The marketing/public relations major wasn’t always a setter. She started out as an outside hitter but once she started playing setter in the eighth grade, she never wanted to stop. “I like being in control of the game,” Piper says. “You have to be flexible and mentally focused. You can’t be dwelling on the last play. You have to move to the next play.” In high school, Piper was third team all-state as a sophomore, second team as a junior and first team as a senior year. In Piper’s senior season, the Eagles finished 23-5 overall, losing to Mentor Lake Catholic 25-18, 22-25, 26-24, 25-23 in the Division II state championship. Piper had 25 assists and 16 digs in the final. “Big Walnut has such a huge tradition,” Piper says. “It mentally prepared me to play at the Division III level.” This season Piper was ranked second nationally in hitting percentage with a .445 behind Williams College’s Raea Rasmussen (.459) and 17th in assists per game (10.39) behind College of St. Benedict’s Taya Kockelman (11.96) in the NCAA Division III statistics released on Nov. 2. However McDonald says Piper’s understanding of the game adds more to the program than just her statistics. “She provides a ton of leadership to our team. Although statistics aside, that’s the most important thing she does,” says McDonald, who is 128-37 overall as the Cardinals coach since 2009. “She has an understanding of the game that is pretty unparalleled and she’s able to relay that knowledge to her teammates. “She really challenges me as a coach because she has that in depth understanding. She asks a lot of questions that I may or may not know the answer to. She forces me to be in tune with something that the other team is doing that I might not be paying attention to.” A case in point came during a tight match this year, Piper and McDonald debated who the opponent's blockers were going to go with. McDonald thought the opponent was going to run one defense and Piper bet her coach they were going to run another. “I said ‘OK let’s go with you,’” McDonald says. “I actually was right that time but that happens so sporadically that I won the bet and actually got a cupcake out of it. That’s what makes her such a good player. She’s very confident and, in a very respectful way, she challenges her coaches and her teammates.”