ORLANDO – The UCF volleyball team secured an exciting new addition to the 2020 squad on Friday as the team announced the signing of Stella Gkiourda.
Gkiourda, who more commonly goes by "Stella", comes to UCF from Moschato, Greece, where she has been a part of their national women's' U18 volleyball team for the past several years. Gkiourda is an outside hitter by trade and will add to an already strong hitting core for the Knights.
"It's been a long time since we've looked internationally for a player, but this presented a unique opportunity to really add a high-caliber and high volleyball IQ player to our roster who has had international experience and also comes from a great and very successful international volleyball family," said UCF Volleyball head coach Todd Dagenais.
Gkiourda has been exposed to high level volleyball competition since a very young age as her father is a multi-time Olympian for Greece.
"She has a lot that she can learn, but she also has a lot that she can give to the program and the student-athletes within the program," said Dagenais. "I think she fits into our program because she wants to learn. She is like a sponge. She watches herself and tries to improve herself relentlessly and she is going to be a great addition to the culture of our locker room because she is unselfish and she wants to do what she can do to help the team and the program get better."
"She was very highly sought after by many top-ten and top-20 programs in the country and we were lucky that she chose UCF for her college career."
Gkiourda is the seventh new addition to the Knights this offseason as Dagenais and staff already brought in four other first-year players from all over the country to improve on an already impressive roster that won 25 games, a conference championship and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2019. Gkiourda will join Chloe Scheer, Mary Beth Headley, Emily Lawrence and Brittiney Jones as freshmen in 2020.
On top of the impressive freshman additions, the Knights have also added two transfers to the squad this offseason in sophomore Arianna Arjomand, who comes from Wichita State, and junior Tali Marmen, who comes to UCF from Rutgers.
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