What’s the most you’ve ever ran? Twenty or 30 minutes? A couple sprints? Well, West High takes running to a whole other level. For the volleyball program, we’re talking anywhere from five to eighty sprints, depends on how the coaches are feeling that day. 

One of these athletes is Katherine Shoppa ‘23, a DS/libero, or a defensive specialist that excels at passing and defense, on the freshman gold team. 

She never planned on playing volleyball, in fact, she never had an interest in it. 

“Well, I had pondered the idea of doing volleyball before seventh grade, but I decided against it and did cross country. I tried to do cross country, but I really did not like it, especially after I sprained my ankle,” says Shoppa, “Then when I realized I didn’t like cross country that much, I decided to try volleyball, which I liked, so I stuck with it.”

For that short amount of time, she’s come very far.  

“Katherine never had an interest in volleyball until she joined the team. So, she’s never had the club experiences that many players have had,” said Shoppa’s father,Tyler Shoppa, “She just loves volleyball!” 

He’s helped Shoppa get to where she is now.

You would think that Shoppa would have gone to private sessions or go to numerous volleyball clinics in order to improve her skills from not having played volleyball to being a starter over two years. Instead, all she did was practice with her father.

“We have spent a lot of time in the backyard practicing volleyball. We spent a lot of time practicing serving techniques, especially overhand serving,” said Shoppa’s father. The duo spent a lot of time learning to overhand serve, improve her setting, and defense. “She often wanted to practice returning spikes, so that was fun for me to have a little target practice.”

Shoppa takes pride in how far she’s come, starting with an unpredictable underhand serve to a consistent overhand serve. 

“One of my proudest moments is to see how far I’ve come with serving, because it used to be a struggle for me. When we were learning underhand serving, it took me probably two weeks to be able to get it over. And then in eighth grade, I started doing overhand and it wasn’t very good. But then, I was like, ‘If I want to make it onto the freshman team, if I want to be on the starting lineup, I gotta start serving overhand.’ That summer, I would practice a lot.”

Who would you watch if you were to watch volleyball, the person hitting a ball at fifty miles an hour or the person passing those balls? Most likely the person getting the points. Shoppa, being a DS/libero, has an insight on how back row players are overlooked. 

“It is really difficult being the back row sometimes because you have to handle the other teams. But at the same time I mean I get it, like the people who are in the front row are the ones who get the points,” says Shoppa, “At the end of the day, I know that they don’t get it, but yeah it does upset me because I wish that they would know how difficult it is and that we work our butts off.” 

Shoppa admires collegiate athletes, especially the University of Iowa volleyball team. 

“I liked Molly Kelly, the Iowa libero, and Brie Orr, the setter last year. I’m not a setter, but like, still inspiration. She gets to the ball, like she’s 10 times better,” Shoppa says. 

Along with looking up to those all-tournament athletes, she invisions what they do in her future of volleyball, specifically potentially playing in college.

“Playing for the University of Iowa would be cool, I love going to the University of Iowa games. The Huskers are also pretty good, but I also would not want to go to Nebraska because that’s like our rival. But I mean any college. I’d probably play for something across the country. If I could play at Stanford, we’d be living good.” 

Multiple people, both coaches and parents, think Shoppa has a bright future and so does she.

“At the end of the day, I know I can do this.”