Volleyball

Raw talent helping out Little Lions

Gordon Brunskill

STATE COLLEGE — Volleyball is not supposed to be this easy.

CDT file photo/Nabil K. Mark

In his first year playing volleyball, junior Trevor Stark has slowly become a key contributor to the State College team, which faces Greater Latrobe in a PIAA first-round match tonight.

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Sure, Trevor Stark is tall and athletic, but there are so many nuances to the game, especially when you get to this level of high school ball, that he shouldn’t have this kind of impact.

It takes more than knowing there are six players on each side, when to rotate and the first team to 25, winning by two, wins the set.

“It takes more than being big to be good at this game,” State College head coach Kim-Li Kimel said. “You have to be an athlete, you have to have court awareness, body awareness. You have to understand not only where you are and what your role is but where your teammates are, especially your middles, because they can hurt somebody.”

Yet somehow, the Little Lion junior has progressed from skills in March that were — to put it nicely — less than stellar to a place where he is typically second or third on the team each night in points.

The State College boys’ volleyball team has reached the state tournament for the eighth time in the last 10 seasons, facing Greater Latrobe at 7:30 p.m. at Central Cambria High School in the first round of the PIAA Class AAA tournament. A win would put the Little Lions in the quarterfinals at Penn State on Friday.

The team might still be there without Stark, but he certainly makes a big difference and he now has opponents’ attention. In a mere six appearances with the varsity, he has been in double digits in kills or blocks three times each, including 15 kills and eight blocks against Erie McDowell in last week’s District 6-9-10 championship, 14 kills and 24 blocks against Altoona and nine kills and 21 blocks against Central York in his very first match.

Since he is a friend of outside hitter Chris Rose, and lives near assistant coach Kirk Hoover, the State College coaches have known of the 6-foot-7 Stark for a while. After constant prodding from Rose, Stark finally gave it a go this spring.

“The first day of practice I was always asking (setter) Andy Foard where I’m supposed to go and what I can and can’t do,” Stark laughed.

Since Stark is a junior and the coaches could show only so much patience, their plan was to play him with the junior varsity to start the year, develop his skills and timing, and if he was ready by their Invitational the first weekend of May, call him up to the varsity.

“He’s been really good-natured about his position with the team,” Kimel said. “What he’s understood what he needed more than anything was court experience, court time.”

He was a little ahead of schedule, playing twice before that tournament beginning with the match at Central York on April 27.

While he has learned the ballet of playing at and above the net without touching it and working in concert for blocking with the outside hitters or setter, he is far from being an expert. He can still be off in the timing on some of the quick sets from Foard, and he is still learning how to read where and what an opponent may be hitting.

“It kills me sometimes,” Kimel said. “If he had come out as a sophomore, not even as a freshman, he’d have been all-state this year. I expect next season, if he comes back out, he’ll be making some noise at the state level.”

He confesses he still shanks the occasional pass, which is not always a necessity for a middle hitter, and he is still working on his serve.

Everyone is just happy his blocking has progressed so well.

“He’s just shown tremendous improvement, definitely, from the first time he went up to block and got in the net to where he is now,” senior libero James Burke said. “He’s definitely helping funnel the block to our defense.”

There is little doubt he is enjoying the change of scenery. He has been playing AAU basketball for years and averaged 5.8 points a game with the Little Lion varsity this past winter, though he missed 10 of the team’s 23 games with a torn calf muscle.

He had hopes of playing basketball at the college level, but now he admits he might think about volleyball instead.

“That’s a tough call,” he said. “It’s probably pretty even. I’m enjoying both of them.”

More than anything else, Stark has shown to be a fast learner. Somehow, he makes volleyball look easy.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Stark said. “It’s been a good year. I’m having a great time. I’m glad I did it.”

Gordon Brunskill is a sports writer for the Centre Daily Times. He can be reached at 231-4608 or gbrunski@centredaily.com.