She doesn’t have two left feet, but freshman Lindsay Haupt did manage to pack a pair of shoes for the same foot before a recent road trip for Sacramento State volleyball.

“I think I was in a hurry so I grabbed what I thought were my new shoes,” Haupt said. “When I got up in the morning for practice at Weber State I saw that I’d packed two left shoes. I had to practice in (head coach) Debby (Colberg’s) shoes and she wore my green and gold Pumas because we have the same-size feet.

“Everyone said I had ‘Debby Power.’ “

As the story goes, Haupt had a very good practice that unfortunately did not carry over into the match that evening.

“That will never happen again,” Haupt said.

A rookie mistake certainly, but this rookie doesn’t make many.

In arguably the two biggest Hornets victories of the year, Oct. 9 against Eastern Washington and 10 days later on Oct. 19 against Pacific, Haupt had the most prolific games of her early career.

Against Eastern, Haupt was called upon to play for senior Emily Wilson, who caught an elbow to her left eye on a Sandra Bandimere arm swing. Haupt went in and immediately produced dividends, ending up with seven kills and one error on 15 attacks, good for a .400 hitting percentage, and four blocks.

In the regional rivalry match-up with Pacific, Haupt started at middle and was the matches top performer with 12 kills and one error on 19 attacks (.579 hitting percentage) and four blocks, including one on match-point.

“In those two matches in particular I felt comfortable with myself,” Haupt said. “I didn’t get down on myself when I made mistakes, I just kept telling myself, ‘Next ball, next ball.’ The harder the (opponent), the more focused I am to play.”

Ironically, the two toughest opponents Haupt has faced were not Eastern and Pacific, or any other team for that matter. They have been the two veteran middle hitters she competes with every day in practice in junior Shannon Arts and Wilson to get into the lineup.

“Every day I have to work my hardest knowing that I have those two to compete with,” Haupt said. “They push me to do better.”

It didn’t have to be this way. Haupt turned down an offer from Boise State, where she would have started right away, to come to Sac State and wait her turn behind two experienced players. Arts and Wilson both said they were impressed with Haupt especially with how quickly she picked things up.

“She’s very coachable,” Wilson said. “She takes advice well and is a very quick learner.”

Haupt said she feels having the experienced players in front of her makes a world of difference.

“I feel like I can learn from everyone,” Haupt said. “Whereas some people don’t like to be told to work on things, my pet peeve is when you don’t tell me what I’m doing wrong.

“I constantly have people behind me on this team telling me what to do and I love that.”

Even though her play has been stellar at times, Colberg and Haupt’s teammates say that they’re just seeing the tip of iceberg as far as what Haupt is truly capable of.

“She’s just such a raw talent,” said redshirt sophomore Jennifer Ferguson, who played with Haupt for a year with the Shasta Creations volleyball club in Redding. “You can take an athlete and teach them to do anything. Lindsay chose volleyball and that’s what she’s going to be great at.”

Ferguson spoke of the first time she met her current teammate, at Haupt’s first practice with the Creations. When Ferguson brought up the subject of running a “slide,” when the middle hitter slides to her right and hits off one foot, much like a lay-up in basketball, she got nothing in response.

“She didn’t know what a slide was, so I told her to think like it was lay-up and she looked at me with a blank face,” said Ferguson, who played four years of basketball and volleyball at Pleasant Valley High in Chico. “I just assumed because she’s so tall that she had a basketball background.

“She hates it when I tell that story.”

Colberg, the team’s coach for the past 29 seasons, doesn’t hesitate nor does she mince words when offering her opinion of Haupt’s potential impact on the program.

“I think she could end up being the best middle we’ve ever had.”