Junior Kaely Evans hopes to pursue volleyball after high school and build on her academic achievements, but she doesn’t want to be defined as just a volleyball player. Evans started playing volleyball when she was only 9 years old, but outside of doing volleyball most of her teen years she has many other hobbies as well.
“I play club volleyball, Spikeball and pickleball a lot,” said Evans, who is the team’s starting setter. “I think Spikeball is probably my favorite to play.”
As an athlete and an AP student, Evans has a lot to balance when it comes to staying on task with her assignments while playing volleyball. Her schedule changes a lot throughout the year since she does both school and club volleyball.
“I have two to three hours of practice a day and then like school practice, and then I get home,” Evans said. “If I have church, I’ll go there and do homework and hangout with friends. Normally, I have club practices on Tuesday and Thursday, and then I leave Friday for tournaments.”
Over the years, Evans has dealt with injuries that almost ended her volleyball career.
“Freshman year, I broke my pelvic bone,” Evans said. “It was a stress fracture from overusing it, and then this year I got hit and bruised two parts of my retina and I couldn’t see out of my eye for like a month. It didn’t affect my playing time too much, but my first game back was the Kingwood versus the KPark game, so it was kind of a struggle to have that as the first game back.”
Evans has been a key contributor on this year’s varsity squad that finished second in the district. The Panthers will play their first playoff game tonight against College Station High School at Hempstead. She has been the starting setter and said she loves being able to be involved on every possession.
“Being a setter is not so easy, it comes with many challenges that most would be surprised with,” Evans said. “It’s definitely the position that’s the hardest mentally, because it’s a lot of decision making. You kind of have to lead the team well and they rely on you a lot as a setter.”
Evans previous season of club volleyball was successful. She played with TAV last year and went 10-1 at nationals. This year, she is playing at Skyline during the club season.
“I’m looking forward to meeting new people,” Evans said. “I think in volleyball you can make such tight relationships. That’s what I look forward to – obviously, the volleyball aspect but like getting to be with your teammates all the time is really fun.”
