After nearly quitting volleyball, Avery Beckett becomes Division I player
WAVERLY, Iowa (BVM) — As Avery Beckett looks toward her senior season of volleyball at Waverly-Shell Rock and the beginning of her Division I volleyball career at University of South Dakota, she still thinks back to how close she came to quitting volleyball for good.
“I think about it kind of a lot,” Beckett said. “It’s crazy to think I almost quit. … Going into my eighth grade year I was going to quit volleyball.”
Beckett had been playing volleyball since she was in third grade but was losing interest in the sport, in large part due the club team she had begun playing for as a fourth grader. She wasn’t on the A-team and the club had told her that she was too small to be a hitter.
That, combined with her love for softball, created a situation where Beckett was ready to end her volleyball career and focus solely on softball.
“I was really big into softball for a really long time,” Beckett said.
This wasn’t meant to be, however, as Six Pack Volleyball Club picked her up. The club believed in her ability to be a hitter, placed her on one of the elite teams and worked with her to maximize her potential.
“They helped me become the player I am today,” Beckett said.
It was exactly what she needed and the support of her coaches gave her the motivation she needed to go from someone who had no experience as a hitter to one of the best in the state.
“It took a lot of extra practice and extra work,” Beckett said.
The college interest began soon after she made the switch to Six Pack, and by the end of her freshman year, her family had hired a college recruiter to help with the process. It was her recruiter that first brought USD to her attention.
“I didn’t even know South Dakota existed until my recruiter told me they were interested,” Beckett said. “I went to a camp and fell in love and knew that was where I wanted to go from the first time I stepped on campus basically.”
Beckett verbally committed to be a Coyote last summer and then proceeded to show why she was a Division I player during her junior season. The 6-foot Go-Hawk senior is coming off a season in which she led the entire state in kills with 561 and even surpassed Hall of Famer Morgan Kuhrt’s single-season kill record.
Her success last year is one of the reasons Waverly-Shell Rock enters this season with high expectations to make it further than it did last year. Another reason is Beckett’s longtime teammate Sophie Sedgwick, will also be returning.
“Me and Sophie have been teammates since third grade and we’ve always played school together,” Beckett said.
While Beckett led the state in kills, Sedgwick led the state in assists with 1,012. Along with these two seniors, the Go-Hawks return most of their team from last year.
“I’m pretty excited for the team we’re going to have this year just based on how far we got last year and we just came short of state,” Beckett said.
It was that excitement that helped Beckett get through rehab during the offseason after she had surgery on the labrum she tore during the school season. During those four months of physical therapy, it was the thoughts of this upcoming season that kept her going.
“It was really hard missing out on my whole club season,” Beckett said. “During rehab something that kept me motivated was the upcoming season. I was super excited for the season because the last season went really well.”
Beckett is cleared now and ready to get back to what she does best, reminding everyone why it is crazy that all of this almost didn’t happen.
