Kristen Folk sat hunched over atop a table, her 6-foot-5-inch frame fidgeting with nervousness.

“Katie, how did I feel when I went from redshirting to playing?” she asked her teammate Katie Meinhardt, a senior guard and captain of the Boston University women’s basketball team, as Meinhardt walked by on her way to the locker room.

“You were excited,” Katie said with a smile.

“I said that already,” Folk said, sounding disappointed her teammate couldn’t come up with something else. “I said I was both excited and nervous and it was a very quick adjustment. But what was my mentality?”

Forgive Folk if she’s not too good at this interviewing thing yet. After all, she wasn’t even supposed to be playing for the team this year, never mind dealing with the media.

In a year in which Folk was supposed to redshirt for the Boston University women’s basketball team, she has instead found herself playing in every game this year for BU. After two of the Terriers four frontline players went down before the season started, Folk had to lose the red shirt in favor of a scarlet and white jersey to help fill the void.

In her collegiate debut, Folk recorded a double-double in just 15 minutes as the first forward off the bench for the Terriers. Wednesday, in her debut at Agganis Arena, Folk impressed again. The Pennsylvania native scored six points to go along with a game-high nine rebounds and five blocks in just 17 minutes of playing time, as the Terriers defeated Brown University, 60-59.

Brown had no answer for Folk, as she disrupted much of what the Bears were trying to do offensively. Any time a Brown player attempted a layup around or over the forward, she found a way to get her hand on the ball and keep it away from the rim. As the game progressed, driving Bears twisted their bodies and threw up shots from peculiar angles to avoid Folk’s shot-blocking presence.

She was a force on the boards as well. Although officially given credit for nine rebounds, the freshman got her hands on countless others, keeping balls alive and allowing the Terriers to establish possession. Late in the game, with the score close, Folk even showed an acrobatic side, saving a ball on its way out of bounds and keeping possession for the Terriers.

“It’s so nice to have her in there,” Meinhardt said after the game. “She had a bunch of huge blocks – we get really fired up over it and build off of it.”

Going into the season, BU seemed to have great depth at the forward position with three returning contributors, including both starters.

But injuries quickly derailed the Terrier front line. Junior Kasey Devine was working back from an injury early in the preseason when she was hit with a case of mononucleosis that set her further back. Sophomore Jesyka Burks-Wiley, who came on strong at the end of last year in the America East tournament, was the projected starter at the other forward spot, but went down with a knee injury just days before BU’s first game.

Suddenly, the Terriers found themselves with just two forwards, and coach Kelly Greenberg realized she would have to remove Folk’s redshirt status.

“We had mentioned it to Kristen before Jes went down,” Greenberg said. “We talked with her and her mom to make sure it was okay. It showed how unselfish she is.”

Folk had little time to make the adjustment from redshirting to playing, making the transition even tougher.

“It was a very quick adjustment,” Folk said. “I had to turn my mentality from ‘you’re going to improve a lot this year’ to ‘you’re going to be on the court.'”

Her mentality wasn’t the only difficult thing for Folk to deal with in the transition. She had offenses and defenses to learn, and she had to learn them quickly.

“I wasn’t comfortable at all,” Folk said. “They had to walk me through a lot and I made a lot of mistakes, but I’m over them now. The offenses were tricky. I didn’t get them, at all. And then finally, like right now, I’ve been able to pull them all together and get them.”

Although Folk ran more offenses in high school, those sets were more like set plays. BU’s offensive sets are so open-ended and complex that Folk had trouble grasping them, especially with so few days in which to do so.

But she must have figured them out – at least to some degree – by the Terriers’ first game, Nov. 14 against the University of Rhode Island. The freshman recorded 11 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks, a good game made even better by the fact that she played only 15 minutes.

“I went in there thinking, ‘I’m a freshman, I can make mistakes, it’s fine,'” Folk said. “And I went in there and just gave it my all and I ended up with a double-double that day. I was on cloud nine. It was really exciting.”

Soon, Folk found herself inside storied Gampel Pavilion, home of the five-time national champion UConn women’s basketball team. Although she didn’t have as much success against the Huskies (Four points and two rebounds in 14 minutes), Folk enjoyed the experience, one that just a month before she didn’t think she’d be a part of.

“It was a challenge, and it was fun at the same time,” Folk said. “Going from being redshirted and not playing at all to playing at Gampel…it was fun.”

Just a couple of years ago, playing college basketball at all – never mind playing against the likes of UConn – would have seemed like a stretch. Folk didn’t start playing basketball until sixth grade, when she transferred to a new private school.

“All the girls were doing it, and it was a new school so I had to get in with them socially,” Folk said. “So that’s what made me start basketball.”

Although Folk was always the tallest on the team, she didn’t take to basketball immediately.

“I was awful,” she said.

She struggled to find her game even in high school. But with the arrival of a new head coach, Joe Ferguson, at her high school her junior year, Folk finally reached her potential, averaging 16 points per game while leading the team in blocks and rebounds as a senior.

“She had a lot of natural ability,” Ferguson said of his former standout center. “I gave her some confidence and tried to bring that ability out of her.”

“He had faith in me, he wanted to work with me,” Folk said. “He knew that I could be good because he saw potential. So he worked with me inside and out. He formed me into the player I am today.”

And that player has quickly impressed the BU community. Folk is averaging 5.4 points and 5.8 rebounds per game, to go along with a team-high 12 blocks – all while averaging just 14.6 minutes a game.

“Did I ever think she’d be helping us out like this?” Greenberg said. “No way.”

But now Greenberg and the Terriers are in a dilemma. Burks-Wiley and Devine are both playing their way back from injuries, and the Terriers now have five forwards, all of whom have shown they can play – and play well – at the collegiate level.

“It’s hard to juggle,” Greenberg said. “We feel that we have five legitimate forwards. We will have to figure out how to use them all without hurting us.”

Folk knows that she has some weaknesses she has to work on if she wants to see more playing time. Her stamina is limited, so Greenberg is unable to leave the freshman in the game too long, contributing to her low number of minutes. She also acknowledged that she needs to get more aggressive and use her size to draw more fouls. The freshman has only attempted nine free throws this season.

“She needs to takes some time and mature physically,” Ferguson said. “She needs to improve strength-wise, but she knew that coming in.”

She also knows that earning playing time will be a battle from here on out, but she’s ready for the challenge.

“I think it would be disappointing if I didn’t get more playing time,” Folk said. “But that’s my fault because it all depends on how I play up there.”

But if she keeps playing like this, Folk shouldn’t have to worry about playing time, even with all the competition.