From SU to Cyprus: Kendra Lukacs heads overseas to play professional volleyball

Kendra Lukacs trained and played indoor volleyball competitively year-round from a young age with aspirations to become a professional volleyball player. But in between her sophomore and junior year of high school, Lukacs’ best friend mentioned that she was interested in competing at the U21 championships for beach volleyball in Canada and asked Lukacs to play alongside her.

Lukacs had never played beach volleyball at this level before, and she had never played a game with her best friend as a partner. There were multiple rule and style changes between indoor and beach, and she only had a day to prepare. The tournament was composed mostly of players from Quebec who went to school specifically to play beach volleyball. Despite all of this, Lukacs played in the tournament and won a silver medal with her partner.

For Lukacs, taking on something new wasn’t out of character. She traveled outside her home country, Canada, to play college volleyball in the United States, and after her four years at Syracuse, she made the uncommon switch from indoor to beach volleyball. Just recently in August, she made another major change in her life, as she joined Dikefalos Geriou Volleyball to play professionally in Cyprus.

Professional volleyball surrounded Lukacs her entire life. Her mother, Karen, who played professionally in Canada and France, had a heavy influence on Kendra’s playing style. She coached Lukacs every other year until eleventh grade.

Opportunities to play at a higher level — and in the United States — arrived when Syracuse University showed interest in Lukacs while she was in eighth grade. After looking around at other schools, Lukacs looked back into SU during her junior year of high school after touring the campus. Lukacs, who won MVP on a team that won the U18 Canadian national championships, was the only player on her team who moved to the U.S. to play volleyball.

“She took a route that was very different than all of her friends,” Karen said. “It’s harder to leave your country than you think, even though the United States and Canada are very similar.”

In four seasons at Syracuse from 2016 to 2019, Lukacs led the program to its only NCAA tournament appearance. She finished with 391 kills, 670 digs and averaged 1.6 points per serve in her career.

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Before her senior year at SU, she thought about redshirting and returning back to Canada to play volleyball. Canada allows two additional years of eligibility after three years of playing in the United States, so it seemed like the right decision. But Lukacs found out that switching sports also granted an additional year of eligibility in the NCAA, so she figured she could take on a familiar challenge — beach volleyball.

She asked SU’s head coach, Leonid Yelin, if he could help her find a place to play. He recommended Coastal Carolina University, where previous SU players had gone to play beach and indoor volleyball. After chatting with SU alumni who played at Coastal Carolina, Lukacs visited campus right before the pandemic started in March 2020. After visiting and talking to the coach, Lukacs was ready for a new sport, a master’s program and a different environment.

Lukacs’ Coastal Carolina teammate Sarah Riedell said it was exciting to see Lukacs join the team because she added height to an undersized team. But Riedell and the team also knew they had to help her make the transition from an indoor style of play to beach volleyball.

“It’s always cool to see people make the transition and kind of realize how much of a difference there is coming from indoor volleyball to beach volleyball,” Riedell said.

Kendra Lukacs had 391 kills in four seasons at Syracuse as a star in SU’s only NCAA Tournament appearance.
Courtesy of Kendra Lukacs

Because of beach volleyball, Lukacs said she was able to develop more all-around skills. In beach volleyball, players have to be more active with only two players on the court, as it’s “harder to hide,” she said. Players will have an easier time targeting an opposing player compared to indoor volleyball which has six players on the court. They also have to be more confident in ball control and passing.

Similar to NCAA tennis, beach volleyball is played with pairs as teams. There are five matches played simultaneously on separate courts, with the first flight as the strongest two players and the fifth as the weakest.

Since she was making the transition, Lukacs started out on the fifth team, but she eventually worked her way up to the third team by the end of the 2021 season.

When she moved up to the third flight, she was paired with Riedell, a freshman at the time. On paper, the two looked vastly different because of their age gap, but they were able to work well together.

“I felt like we learned a lot from each other because she had played beach most of her life,” Lukacs said. “In the same sense, I carry a lot of experience and game play maturity that helped her out.”

As her beach volleyball season ended, Lukacs began talking to the indoor volleyball coach at Coastal Carolina about playing professionally. He set her up with an agent, and Lukacs went through multiple offers to play professionally. Eventually she secured a spot in the top league in Cyprus.

Lukacs arrived in Cyprus in late August and practiced with the team once. She said she’s embracing the new culture as most people speak English there, which helps, but all of the signs are in Greek letters. The other day, she had to FaceTime her former Syracuse teammate Elena Karakasi, who is from Greece, to ask what each button signifies on her washing machine.

Sometimes Lukacs’ teammates speak Greek on the court, which will be an obstacle to overcome considering communication is one of Lukacs’ strong points, her mom said. Aside from the language barrier, Lukacs looks forward to starting the season with her new team in mid-October.

“She’s made this all happen on her own,” Karen said. “To be brave enough to take that step and to be resilient enough … that aspect of (her journey) is what I’m most proud of.”