Women’s volleyball player Courtney Baker had an outstanding career in her five seasons with the Dalhousie Tigers, leading them to five-consecutive conference championship titles and a fourth-place national championship finish at the end of the 2018-19 season.
A three-time AUS player of the year, she was named an AUS first team all-star in her four of her five seasons. The 5’11 setter is also a three-time U SPORTS first team all-Canadian and was chosen as the top player in the country to finish her university career at last March.
The Bridgewater, Nova Scotia native has also spent time with Canada’s junior and senior national volleyball program.
Now that her university career has come to an end, Baker has taken the next step in her volleyball career by heading overseas, joining Szent Benedek Röplabda Akadémia (SZBRA), in the Extraliga, one of Hungary’s top volleyball leagues.
She landed in Balatonfüred, Hungary, about two hours from Budapest back in August and is sharing an apartment with fellow Canadian and current teammate Kory White.
Being in a new country with a different language has been challenging for Baker.
“The people have been very friendly which is helping me adjust,” she says. “The language barrier has been tough, but luckily most of the girls can speak some English. Our coach is Serbian and also speaks Hungarian and English. I’m still learning the language and it gets easier each day.”
The first few weeks the team was doing preseason training twice a day, doing a lot of running and circuit training. On September 1st, the focus turned more to play on the court.
“We’ve been training at a very fast pace with a high intensity,” adds Baker. “I’m still adjusting to the style of play and systems they run, but I’m really enjoying the challenge so far!”
Volleyball has pretty much become her fulltime job, so she has the ability to focus much of her time on learning those new systems and adjusting to the style of play. She’s still going to be taking a couple of classes online to finish her kinesiology degree.
SZBRA’s first league game is October 1, 2020. You can follow the team on Facebook and check the league schedule and standings here.