DAVID HARDEN/Arizona Daily Wildcat Setter Kelly Halfaker returns to the court after redshirting at New Mexico last season. Among a group of freshmen and sophomores, Halfaker is the only senior on Arizona's team this year.

Fifth-year senior setter Kelly Halfaker returns from a pair of knee injuries in time to open Pac-10 play

Dominated by sophomores and freshmen, the volleyball team doesn't like being labeled a young team.

Now they have a senior to join them.

Fifth-year senior setter Kelly Halfaker has started practicing again after being sidelined since the third day of practice due to a knee injury. Last year, while she played at the University of New Mexico, she had to take a medical redshirt when she tore her anterior cruciate ligament in the second practice of the season.

Halfaker, who suited up for the first time last Saturday against American, said it feels good to be back in uniform and believes she could be back on the court in one to two weeks.

"It feels good," Halfaker said. "It's hard coming back after being gone for so long, to get back into it. I'd say I'm at 70 percent right now, so I'm not close to 100 percent, but it feels good. I was going crazy sitting on the sideline."

She will move to second on the depth chart at the setter position behind true freshman Stephanie Butkus. Head coach Dave Rubio felt it would be a couple of weeks before Halfaker could play a whole match.

"It would have been nice if we had Kelly in a lot of matches, to give Stephanie a break when she needs a mental break, to talk to her on the sideline," Rubio said. "So it's going to be nice to have Kelly in the gym for us."

Don't feel bad if you need a programto identify Halfaker. She transferred from New Mexico in the off-season as Kelly Griffin, and married Dale Halfaker over the summer. She said she transferred to the UA because it's a "better opportunity here, (and a) much better team."

"It's kind of the experience I've always wanted," Halfaker said.

Rubio doesn't know yet where Halfaker will fit in at setter, as Butkus is third in the Pacific 10 Conference with over 12 assists a game.

"It's hard to say," he said. "There's so much water under the bridge now. It's just hard to say. It will take her a little while to get caught up with the system."

Rubio said that Butkus, one of the top high school setters last year, is clearly number one.

"I don't think it affects Stephanie at all," he said. "Right now, because Stephanie's been running the team for a month and a half now almost, Kelly's still got a lot to catch up on ÷ so I think right now Stephanie's clearly the starter."

Halfaker had nothing but praise for Butkus.

"I think she's been doing a great job," she said. "It's going to be hard to come back and win my position because she's a very good player, so I need to work my butt off."

Halfaker comes from an extremely athletically gifted family. Her sister, Shannan, played at Washington State, the team the UA opens up Pac-10 play against. But Kelly said Shannan isn't upset at her for not picking the Cougars.

"She was just excited that I was coming to the Pac-10," she said. "She thinks the Pac-10's a great conference and has better opportunities than the Mountain West."

Halfaker's father, Tom Griffin, played Major League Baseball for 17 years. Her brother, Brett, played football at the University of San Diego.

"It's cool (having a father who played in the majors)," Halfaker said. "It's a lot of fun. He gets a lot of fan mail and it's fun to go into a store and see his baseball card and stuff."

Halfaker said it's neat to be a fifth-year senior on such a young team.

"It's fun; the girls are just really good players," she said. "We make some silly mistakes, but for the most part they don't play like they're freshmen or anything like that. It's a fun team to be a part of."

Halfaker said sitting on the sideline for three weeks has not been a total waste because she has learned a lot from Rubio, the ASICS/Volleyball Magazine National Coach of the Year in 2001.

"I feel like I've learned a lot, strategy-wise, sitting next to Dave because he's always yelling at the setters," she said.