Capacity for greatness: Venezuela's Luna making her mark at AU
By Payton Willis | Sports writer
Most people would never have to imagine the hardships that come with uprooting their whole lives to follow their athletic passions by leaving their friends, families and childhood homes and moving to another continent.
Augusta University’s junior libero Dariana Luna did not have to imagine. It was her reality.
Luna was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. She was only 7 years old when she started playing volleyball. While she tried her hand at other sports, Luna said that volleyball was the sport that resonated with her the most.
“I am such a sporty girl,” Luna said. “But in Venezuela, you could basically only do volleyball. The only other sport I really tried playing was tennis. I was actually pretty good, but they told me if I wanted to keep playing, I would have to give up volleyball. I told them I was not doing that.”
Luna was gifted with athletic ability from the time she was a small child, but it can be hard to pursue an athletic career while having to endure the social, political, and economic turmoil that her home country was going through.
“My country… It’s been really bad since I was born,” she said. “My family was very successful in Venezuela, but then still. It doesn’t matter what you have achieved when your country is falling apart.”
Luna’s family encouraged her to move to the United States to give herself a chance at a better future. According to Luna, her family sacrificed a lot to support her, and their bravery and encouragement was a catalyst for her success as an athlete in America. They “started from zero.”
Being a college athlete is hard enough on its own, but being an international student as a college athlete creates its own set of challenges. Luna’s family did not speak English, and although she had some familiarity with the language because of classes she took while she was in school in Venezuela, she never anticipated having to actually use the skills she developed in a classroom.
Move to Miami
Luna said felt she would have studied English harder if she had ever imagined that she would be moving to the United States while she was in school. When Luna first moved to the United States, she lived in Miami, Fla. The city has a large Spanish-speaking population that helped her ease her way into learning a new language while she adjusted to her new life in America.
“Thankfully, when I moved to Miami, it really was not hard to make friends because most people spoke Spanish,” Luna said.
Many Americans believe that English is one of the hardest languages for people from foreign countries to learn, and while in many cases it is, it was not difficult for Luna. She started speaking English fluently within a few years of living in this country.
One of Luna’s main motivations for leaving Venezuela was the fact that all of her hometown friends were moving away and starting new lives. The country has gone through political instability going back to the early 1990s.
“I decided to come here specifically because I was in Venezuela and most of my friends were leaving,” Luna said. “I would be crying every week because they were leaving. I don’t want to keep having to cry. I’m just going to leave.”
Being alone can weigh heavily on anybody when moving far away from home, and Luna was no exception. Her independence from her family for her first few years in America was one of the many challenges she would have to overcome.
“It was just hard to be without my parents and my sister, you know,” Luna said. “That was the main thing really. Being away from my sister, but I knew I just had to do it.”
The young libero would go on to start an outstanding collegiate career in the United States. She began playing at St. Johns River State College in Lakeside, Fla. (near Jacksonville). Luna earned Sun-Lakes player of the year, averaging nearly 5 and a half digs per set. She was also named a second-team all-America by the NJCAA, named a NJCAA Division II all-America by volleyballmag.com, and finished her career as the all-time leader in aces, digs and digs-per-set.
A Florida connection
While Luna was seeing a lot of success in her athletic career at St. Johns Rivers, the Augusta Jaguars were seeing success as a team before Luna’s decision to transfer. The Jaguars made it to the Elite Eight in Tampa, Fla., behind the leadership of seniors Chloe Allen and Kylie Martin. While the Jaguars were defeated before making it to the final round by eventual national champion University of Tampa, AU Coach Sharon Quarles was confident in the program moving forward. Making it to the Elite Eight is a significant accomplishment, and Coach Quarles (a University of Florida alumna) knew that achieving that level of success would help with recruiting.
Quarles’ confidence in recruiting new players proved to be fruitful. The Jaguars’ success in recruiting during the offseason is how the team could come to meet several transfers, including Luna.
According to Luna, the decision to transition from St. Johns River to Augusta University came to her very quickly after visiting campus for the first time.
“I emailed them and they literally replied to me right away,” Luna said, “Within the next week I was already coming here.”
The team left a great first impression of Luna upon her first visit to Augusta. The gestures they made to transport her from Lakeland to Augusta combined with the immediate chemistry she felt when practicing with the team for the first time made her decision to transfer easy.
“Deja went and picked me up from the train station because I don’t have a car,” said Luna. “They paid for my food and everything.”
The competitive spirit of the Jaguar volleyball team was something that Luna felt her previous team was lacking, and she knew immediately she wanted to be a part of it in Augusta.
“I practiced with the girls and that was all I really needed to know I wanted to come here,” said Luna. “I could see right away how competitive they were, and how I could relate with them because I am also very much competitive.”
Luna was one of a few transfers that were key difference-makers in the Jaguars’ success in 2022. Jazmyn Wheeler came to Augusta out of Phoenix, Ariz. and Jada Suguturaga transferred out of South Jordan, Utah. Luna was well-received by her new teammates upon transferring to Augusta. Senior middle-blocker Alexis Diaz-Infante, who was also a transfer from Phoenix, Ariz., described her first impressions of befriending her new teammate, “Dari.”
“I automatically knew that she was going to be somebody that I got along with very well,” Diaz-Infante said. “She just has such a bubbly personality and she is also very kind.”
Chemistry with new team and teammates
It’s common for students that transfer to new teams to take time to adjust to playing on a new roster. The transition from one team to another can often create issues with teammate chemistry. According to both Luna and Diaz-Infante, the team never had this issue when she joined the Jaguars.
“Maybe there was a little bit of shyness at first, but I feel like that just comes with joining a whole new team with new people,” said Diaz-Infante. “I think as soon as she got comfortable she started expressing herself pretty easily with everyone.”
According to Diaz-Infante, Luna’s transfer to Augusta resonated with her because, having travelled all the way from Phoenix to play in Augusta, she knew from experience what it was like to be a student-athlete playing a sport and studying for a degree so far away from home.
“There’s people that can go home to their families if they’re like an hour and a half away and that is a super awesome privilege to have,” said Diaz-Infante. “It’s kind of hard not seeing your family all the time so I definitely think with any transfer it’s nice to be able to relate to them.”
Despite losing two major leaders from the 2021 team, the Jaguars exceeded expectations thanks to the remaining veterans on the squad and the new transfers on the team, including Luna. Augusta won the Peach Belt Conference regular-season championship for the first time in the school’s history and the Jaguars made it to the second round of the NCAA Southeast Regional Tournament, where they were defeated by the Flagler Saints after securing the No. 2 seed.
Luna is pursuing a degree in digital marketing and intends to remain in the United States. While she would love to keep playing volleyball after graduating, the lack of demand for professional volleyball players in the country makes pursuing a career as a player in the sport difficult after college. According to Luna, this is very different from Venezuela. There, volleyball players can have playing careers into their late 30s or early 40s due to the prominence of professional leagues in the country.
Beyond university
While Luna does not believe it is likely she will continue to play after college, Diaz-Infante believes she has what it takes to land a career in the sport after graduating.
“She’s really good. I think everyone has the capacity for greatness and she is definitely one of those people,” said Diaz-Infante, who graduated with an English degree on Dec. 17 and herself plans to play professionally. “She just has such a good attitude all the time and I am always high-fiving her and hugging her. She’s just one of those people that you always want to be around so I think to be able to coach or to play you have to be a good person and love what you do.”
Luna, along with another returning veteran in honorable mention all-America Jazmyn Wheeler, will have large shoes to fill in their 2023 senior season, but Luna remains confident that they will be just as successful in the future as they were in 2022.
Contact Payton Willis at paywillis@augusta.edu.
AU’s Dariana Luna (third from right) watches as teammate Jordan Jerome goes for the kill and Alexis Diaz-Infante prepares to react to the block against Flagler. At the top of the page, Luna shows her serving style. (photos by Madison Keel)
