The introduction of the starting lineup for the Nebraska volleyball team doesn’t offer much variety.
From Papillion, Nebraska, Kelly Hunter.
From Papillion, Nebraska, Amber Rolfzen.
From Papillion, Nebraska, Kadie Rolfzen.
How did we get to where three players from the same city, and the same graduating class at Papillion-La Vista South High School, are now starters for a team that has a chance to win the NCAA championship this weekend? And even better, the Final Four is being played about 20 miles from where they grew up.
That’s what we tried to find out this week. Along the way, we met some proud parents, the trio’s high school coach, and had a few good cups of coffee.
Two things stand out, especially in this era of specialization. All three played many different sports when they were young, and in high school they were three-sport athletes.
People are also reading…
And they each have played several positions in volleyball. You can see those all-around skills now by watching the setter Hunter swing for kills on out-of-system plays, and seeing how Amber Rolfzen has gone from an OK right-side hitter last season to a second-team All-America middle blocker this season.
* * *
First, we met with Gwen Egbert, who coached the trio in high school and club volleyball, and is now the head coach at Doane College.
She’s known Kelly Hunter most of her life. Egbert and Hunter’s mom, Lori, both played volleyball at Nebraska. They also used to play on a club team together, and started having kids at the same time. Egbert coached Kelly Hunter’s sister, Lindsey, in high school.
Egbert was used to winning when she coached at Papillion-La Vista, but when she went to Papio South, she had a startup program. Doubt began to set in. Hope came in the form of twin sisters.
Kadie and Amber Rolfzen went to volleyball camps at Papio South. An NCAA Division I coach helping at one of those camps saw the twins' potential.
“I’m like, ‘Man, can I get through this?’†Egbert said. “And he’s like, ‘Look at that right there, it’s coming. Just hang on.’â€
Kadie, Amber and Kelly had good eye-hand coordination and long legs, Egbert said.
The trio won three state titles in high school, and all were ranked as top-15 national recruits.
Much has been made of the connection the three must have on the court after being on the same teams for about eight years, and Egbert says that’s not overrated.
“They’ve played together so long they’ve worked through so many things,†Egbert said. “I think it just makes everything smoother. And then you just go and play.â€
Egbert said their families helped the players get where they are.
“They have good parents that stay out of it,†she said. “They let me do my job, they let (NU coach John Cook) do his job and they trust us, and in today’s world, that’s pretty tough.â€
Egbert follows the Huskers when she can. When she was coaching the trio, Cook used to send her a text message after some matches.
“He would text me and go, ‘Report?’†Egbert said. “So I’d go, ‘Girls, how do you think you did?’â€
Now the exchanges have reversed, with Egbert texting Cook to see how the Huskers played. Report?
* * *
The next stop was to meet with Mark and Teresa Rolfzen in Papillion, a city of about 22,000 near Omaha.
Kadie and Amber wanted to play volleyball in third grade, but Teresa made them wait.
“I wouldn’t let them, because I told them if they practiced a lot, then maybe they could play in fourth grade,†Teresa said. “I said I couldn’t watch them just stand there and have a ball come over the net and everybody stands there and watches it. So they started rec in fourth grade, and then they started club in fifth.â€
Kadie and Amber attended Trumble Park Elementary School and Papillion Junior High. It was in junior high that they first played volleyball with Hunter.
The twins got really good really fast. Before they’d played a high school match, they’d committed to the Huskers.
“They went down to a camp the summer between their eighth- and ninth-grade year,†Teresa said. “I remember after the camp we went and told Coach Cook, ‘Thank you very much,’ and off we were going to go. He stopped us and said, ‘Well, you might want to talk to the girls about something I talked to them about in my office.’ My first thought was, ‘Oh, my, gosh, what did they do that they got in trouble for?’
“As we were driving home in the car, Mark asked them what they went to Coach Cook’s office for. ‘Well, he offered us a scholarship.'
“We actually thought they must have misunderstood something,†Mark said. “The next day, I actually called Coach Cook to make sure they heard it right, and they did.â€
Kadie and Amber wanted to commit right away, but their parents made them wait. But for just two weeks.
“Every boy dreams of playing in Memorial Stadium. Well, every girl dreams of playing at the (NU) Coliseum, well at that time it was the Coliseum,†Mark said. “We knew that they weren’t going to go anywhere else.â€
Mark and Teresa also have a son, Ryan, who is three years older and played basketball at Wayne State. He’s one of the twins' biggest fans.
“He was a senior (in high school) when they were freshmen. That’s kind of one of the things I’m most proud of with Ryan, is he was in his senior year, and he was a starter on the basketball team. It was a big deal for him. Well, here come his little twin sisters and they’re getting all the publicity. He took it in stride.â€
Mark and Teresa have yet to miss a Husker home match, and travel to many of the road matches.
“It is kind of fun to listen to the very first three people that are introduced are all from Papillion, and that’s very unique,†Mark said. “I bet you could go back a long time to find three players on the same team from the same high school that graduated the same year and they get to the Final Four. It might be the first time that’s ever happened. That’s pretty impressive.â€
“I always laugh and think, ‘OK, what if someone messes up sometime and that fourth one they say, ‘And from Papillion, Nebraska,’†Teresa said. “Even those two and Kelly laugh about it, that ‘OK, what does the opposing team think? Where is the rest of this team from? Because the first three are all from the same exact hometown.’â€
Amber Rolfzen credits Egbert for how they all were able to have success in college.
“I always say it speaks volumes of Egbert,†she said. “It’s not just a coincidence, I think, that you just have three players on the same D1 team. I think it has to do with Egbert and how she trained us and how she got us to where we are.â€
Kadie Rolfzen, who earned first-team All-America honors Wednesday, has led or tied for the team lead in kills in 15 matches this season. She helped push the Huskers into the Final Four with 20 kills in the regional final match against Washington with a dominating match-clinching set, where she had nine kills on 11 attempts.
“Kadie killed it,†Nebraska's Alicia Ostrander said. “She was mixing in a lot of shots and running a lot of different plays. There were three blockers up at one point and she hit a 2 ball past them somehow. She just played out of her mind.â€
* * *
Just down the road, we meet Jeff and Lori Hunter.
They were both athletes at Nebraska. Lori was on Terry Pettit’s first Husker volleyball team, and Jeff on the NU baseball team.
Kelly Hunter comes from a long line of setters. Her mom and sister were both setters, and an aunt also played at Nebraska.
Her parents tried to ease her into volleyball, which was tough after Kelly watched her sister play in high school and college. Your time will come, they said.
“She’s always had fire. She was going to play no matter what,†Lori said.
One summer Kelly went to a seven-day camp for setters.
“I thought she couldn’t handle it, and she came back and said, ‘I’m going to the 13-day camp next year.’ That was good that I heard her say, 'I want to get better,'†Lori said.
Kelly is more outgoing, and more of a vocal leader than Kadie and Amber, but they share a bond on the court.
“I just think they all three have each other’s back,†Lori said.