Laramie volleyball ends 26-year state title drought with 25-0 season
LARAMIE, Wyo. (BVM) — It would’ve been hard to expect what was to come from the Laramie High School volleyball team this season after it finished 19-17 a year ago.
Improvement wouldn’t have been surprising considering the team was returning the majority of its players from the previous season, including all-state University of Florida commit Alexis Stucky. But the Lady Plainsmen didn’t merely improve.
They didn’t lose a match.
Laramie finished the season 25-0 and claimed its first state title since 1994 by beating three-time defending Class 4A state champion Kelly Walsh in the final. It’s only the second state championship in program history for the Lady Plainsmen and it’s the first for Jill Stucky, who returned for her second head-coaching stint with Laramie this year after to some convincing from her daughters, Alexis and Maddy, who were key members of a talented group of players who propelled Laramie on a historic run that will be hard to top.
“They (Alexis and Maddy) thought we could have a really nice year together and it worked out really well for all of us,” said Jill, a former University of Wyoming player who’s also coached at the Division I college level for the University of Kansas and her alma mater. “It’s amazing. I’m fully invested in this program and I want what’s best for Laramie High School and for our whole community and for my own two daughters and all of that came together this year and made a really great program.”
But going from 19-17 to 25-0 is a huge jump for any program, even for one with a lot of talent and experience. For Laramie, the substantial improvement can be credited in large part to accountability and preparation.
“Each member of our squad held one another accountable for always hustling and always going to the floor for balls and making smart choices and I just think the accountability that we had the entire season was a huge difference,” Jill said. “The second part of that is the kids took a lot of pride in being prepared for our opponents. Each and every opponent that we played we made a point to watch video on them before we would play them. We just felt that it was important that we know what would be coming at us so that we would know how to respond to it.”
While accountability and preparation put the Lady Plainsmen in a better position to succeed, they still wouldn’t have had the opportunity to achieve what they did without the necessary talent and the willingness to work toward improvement. And Laramie had no shortage of either, particularly with its junior class.
Leading that group was Alexis. With her freshman sister Maddi running the offense as the team’s starting setter, the 6-foot-2 future Gators setter racked up 419 kills (5.7 per set) as the team’s top attacker and was also second on the team in digs (371) and aces (35).
“She’s very physical, she jumps very high and she’s very, very skilled but more than that she just understands the game really well,” Jill said of Alexis. “She just knows how to be smart and what to do with the ball. Sometimes she’s got a whole bunch of brawn and sometimes she’s got a whole bunch of brains and man, when those two come together it’s amazing.”
Fellow junior Anna Gatlin led the team in total blocks (43) and was second in kills (131) behind Alexis after a strong offseason during which Gatlin worked hard to improve and became a more physical player while beginning to grow into her 6-foot frame.
“She’s long and gangly which I absolutely love for a 15, 16-year-old kid because you know that they’re going to grow into those gangles and become something really special and that’s what’s happening to Anna right now,” Jill said. “She’s got some skill that’s coming in with her physicalness at the net and she’s becoming a really, really, outstanding player and a real threat at the net.”
Juniors Halley Feezer, Morgann Jensen and Teagan Bluemel also made big strides during the offseason and became valuable contributors for Laramie offensively and defensively.
“I can’t say enough about this group and the commitment that they put into the offseason,” Jill said. “The junior class is amazing.”
Similar superlatives could be used to describe sophomore libero Taylor Tyser, the team’s defensive anchor who recorded 422 digs.
“She’s greased lighting,” Jill said. “She’s so fast. Taylor is just one of those kids where she absolutely loves the game of volleyball. She’s always watching video, not only watching herself play, but she’s watching every college team in the country play, just desperate to learn more about playing libero position and things she can do to be effective for our program. That kid is just really passionate enough to be able to pay beyond high school. It’s exciting.”
There’s plenty of reason for excitement about the future for the Lady Plainsmen, who will have most of the same players returning next season. Matching perfection will be far from an easy task, but it’s not out of the question for a program that’s already achieved more than what could’ve been expected.
