Burns, Felix reflect on career milestones

Published 1:00 pm Thursday, October 3, 2019

WEST POINT — The Point volleyball team (12-7, 8-1) has recently witnessed two career milestones for seniors Tessa Burns and Julia Felix.

On Sept. 24, Burns reached 1,000 career digs.

“I never thought ‘oh, I have to get this milestone,’” Burns said. “Especially coming in as a freshman and sophomore not getting as much playing time as I wanted. Now I’m here. Junior year, I did what I had to do on the court, I got accomplishments, now it’s about senior year and getting better. Day-by-day, game-by-game, I’m just trying to get 15-plus digs a game and that just happened to equal out to 1,000.”

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On Sept. 30, Felix reached 3,000 career assists. 

“To be honest, it hasn’t hit me yet,” Felix said. “It wasn’t something that I had a goal for, it was just something that happened. I focused on one game at a time, one set at a time, tried to get better with every set and with that outcome of hard work, I have 3,000.”

Felix and Burns are two of the team’s leaders this season and the anchors in the Skyhawks’ eight-match winning streak entering Thursday. The seniors said that they weren’t even aware of the team’s winning streak until Wednesday afternoon because they were more focused on the team coming together after getting off to a 4-7 start.

“We’re focusing on each game,” Felix said. “We’re not focusing on our nine-game winning streak or whatever it happens to be at that time. We’re focusing on our opponent and playing our game. We’re making sure we’re getting better and that’s what I think is making us so successful is that we’re not focusing on all of these big goals, but we’re focusing on small goals.”

Upon graduation, the seniors said that the current group of five freshmen are all eager to play and that makes them excited for the future of the program.

Burns hopes to move up the corporate ladder on the business side of Chick-fil-A after receiving her psychology degree, while Felix wishes to work in a sports marketing department team for a major football or basketball team.

The senior duo and the Skyhawks return home at West Point Gym for a matchup against Allen University on Oct. 4 at 6:30 p.m. EDT.