Watching players at the girls state basketball tournament who will later go on to play for Nebraska’s five-time national champion volleyball program isn’t new.
Kadie Rolfzen, Amber Rolfzen and Kelly Hunter for Papillion-La Vista South. Alicia Ostrander at Gordon-Rushville. Brooke Delano at Bellevue West. Christina Houghtelling at Cambridge. Dani Busboom for Freeman. And more.
But this year was pretty unique when it comes to getting an early look at athletes who are planning to play volleyball for the Huskers. And it’s a reminder that after a few years without many Nebraskans on the volleyball team, there will soon be several players from Nebraska on the Husker volleyball team.
This year in girls basketball, all four of the in-state Nebraska volleyball scholarship recruits were a good player on their high school basketball team: junior Kalynn Meyer (Superior), sophomores Rylee Gray (Elkhorn South) and Lindsay Krause (Omaha Skutt), and freshman Bekka Allick (Lincoln North Star).
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Meyer, Gray and Krause each played at the state tournament this week, but their teams didn’t advance to Saturday’s championship games.
Nebraska volleyball coach John Cook was at Pinnacle Bank Arena on Thursday to watch when Gray played a great game with 14 points, and several blocked shots, to lead Elkhorn South to a win against Sidney.
Cook likes to see recruits having success in other sports.
“If you look at our All-American wall, almost all of those players up there were multi-sport athletes, so I think it’s great that they play basketball and track. Kelly Hunter played tennis,†Cook said.
There are some athletes who once they get really good in one sport, they only play that sport in high school and spend the rest of the year playing on club teams or working with trainers.
But Cook isn’t surprised to see the volleyball recruits playing basketball.
“I think a lot of the girls in Nebraska, the schools they go to, they’re expected to play,†Cook said. “I just think in their schools the best athletes are expected to play, and they want to play. There is a lot of school spirit and it’s a big deal in those towns. And they get to come to Lincoln if they make state.â€
Jordan Larson, the former Husker and Olympic volleyball player, was one of those players who was probably expected to play basketball at Logan View High School in Hooper.
“I watched Jordan play basketball,†Cook said. “She would inbound the ball, they would pass it back to her, she would dribble down and hand it off, and then she’d go down and post up and they’d throw it into her and she’d shoot it. That was the offense.â€
A few Nebraska volleyball players, including Laura Pilakowski, Greichaly Cepero and Lisa Reitsma, also played some for the Nebraska women's basketball team.
Cook says you only need to look at what the volleyball team is doing right now to see how he feels about doing multiple sports. The Huskers could be training a few hours each week on volleyball during the offseason, but instead they play beach volleyball, where the players have to learn new skills and compete in a different way, and often times against better beach players.
And Cook says if the recruits start playing club volleyball again after the basketball season they’ll still spend more time doing that than they did playing basketball.
Meyer, the junior from Superior, is one of the best basketball players in the state regardless of class, averaging 20 points and 17 rebounds per game. Gray and Krause each led their team in rebounds.
Allick started on the varsity team as a freshman this season at North Star and averaged 11 points and eight rebounds per game. She scored 26 points in one game, and helped North Star improve from one win last season to 11 this year.
Many good volleyball players played basketball before they did volleyball.
“I was actually more serious about basketball,†Gray said. “I liked basketball a lot better actually at first, because my dad got me into it before my mom got me into volleyball.â€
Gray still finds some time to play volleyball in the winter. On the Sunday morning after Elkhorn South won the game to get to state Gray rejoined her club volleyball team for a few matches during a big tournament in Omaha.
Wahoo’s basketball team at state also had two NCAA Division I volleyball recruits with Kyla Swanson (Illinois) and Elle Glock (USC).