Volleyball | 9/19/2024 8:41:00 AM
By Paul Suellentrop
The videos kept coming to the coaches via email. One clip showed a high school libero practicing passing with her father serving and mom setting in the street in Cypress, Texas. Another showed her digging volleyballs in the driveway after hitting them off the side of the house.
“If nothing else, you were impressed with her gumption,” Wichita State coach Chris Lamb said. “She was literally her putting her phone against a tree, making movies, of her out there against a garage door.”
Annalie Heliste’s creative content got her noticed, got her to Wichita State and, this season, got her the libero uniform. The Shockers (3-6) open their home schedule against Cal Poly (5-3) at 7 p.m. Thursday (ESPN+) in the Shocker Volleyball Classic.
While her skill with iMovie provided the origin story, Heliste’s determination and skills put her in position for a significant senior season.
“Annalie has been a huge success story of getting better statistically every semester, growing her job description every semester,” Lamb said. “It’s been a perfect story of steady incline.”
COVID-19 limited her recruiting during her junior year at Cy-Fair High School – and liberos are usually recruited less heavily than attackers even in normal times. Heliste decided that the pandemic would not keep her from playing NCAA Division I volleyball. She focused on WSU and Rice. A phone call with Shocker coaches encouraged her and she sent videos twice a week.
“I had to make the recruiting process my own,” she said. “I had to get unique with it. I wanted to show coaches that, just because of the circumstances we were in, I was still getting in reps, and I was working hard.”
Heliste took an unofficial visit to WSU and couldn’t meet coaches face to face. Former assistant Chelsea Scott gave her a FaceTime tour of Koch Arena while Heliste and her parents sat in a car outside. She first met Lamb in-person when practice started in the fall of 2021.
“That was trusting your gut,” she said. “I wanted to play Division I volleyball and these coaches, through the phone, were making me feel great and I was already part of the family.”
That hard work didn’t stop through three seasons at Wichita State as a defensive specialist. As a junior, she played in 33 matches and recorded a career-highs 202 digs. This fall, she grabbed the libero job and leads the Shockers with 129 digs.
“You never catch (Heliste) taking a day off,” Lamb said.
Lamb uses a statistical tool to evaluate passers and Heliste’s ability in taking the serve and starting WSU’s offense is critical. She passed above the acceptable standard in a recent loss to No. 5 Nebraska, proof she can handle top competition.
“I’ve got a lot of data and I’ve seen people improve,” Lamb said. “A lot of people tend to hit a wall. But she’s a technical genius, so the fact that her technique is so good, as her confidence has gone up and her reading skills have gone up, so have her passing numbers.”
She is, teammate Gabi Maas said, an expert at putting her arms and shoulders in a tight rectangular platform, called a “shoebox” by the Shockers, to receive serves.
“Her serve-receive has gotten so much better, and that’s a huge reason she is playing libero,” Maas said. “She does the shoebox really, really well. I don’t have the shoulder mobility for it. She’s very good at it, which is why her passing is so good.”
Maas, out with a leg injury this season, played libero in 2023 for the Shockers on their way to a 26-8 record and the National Volleyball Invitational Championship title. Heliste learned from playing alongside Maas and former Shocker Lily Liekweg in the back row.
That experience watching their leadership helped when she took on the added duties as libero.
Wearing the libero jersey means organizing the back row and communicating with teammates. When opposing teams target a teammate for serves, it’s the job of the libero to help by taking those serves. It is a role, Heliste said, the requires a certain amount of being bossy to cover ground and help teammates.
“I feel the coaches know I can do it and have the confidence in me,” she said. “Making the girls around me feel comfortable has made me more confident.”
Maas enjoys watching Heliste get rewarded for her hard work.
“I feel like she’s been an underdog, a little bit,” Maas said. “And that made her so much better, pushed her to be that good. Watching her grow into a leadership role has been super-awesome.”
Paul Suellentrop writes about Wichita State athletics for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)