Senior Kathleen Stevens dominates in the Libero position.
Last week, Kathleen Stevens played her last home match as a UVU volleyball player. Looking back, she doesn’t regret anything.
“The past four years have gone by super fast,” Stevens said. “It’s kind of bittersweet to be done, to kind of move-on in life. It’s been a good four years though; I have no regrets.”
Stevens excelled in soccer, as well as lacrosse, but choose volleyball to take her through college, in part because of her friends from a young age and in part because of her love of the game.
“In seventh grade, a bunch of my friends were going out for the volleyball team, so my friends took me and we flew,” Stevens said. “It [volleyball] was just something that I had fun in and when I went to practice, I enjoyed playing, so it was just really something that I just liked.”
As a college freshman, Stevens started playing as a defensive specialist and since then has held that position. For her final year, Stevens followed a legend, Allyce Jones, by taking over the libero position.
“With Kat it was just a matter of time,” Coach Sam Atoa said. “For her to follow someone like Allyce — and Allyce was just such an excitable person and a leader that I felt like Kat, even during those years, really helped complement what Allyce was doing and Allyce was complementing Kat at the same time.”
The libero is crucial to the team.
“It’s an interesting position because we have different rules and it’s kind of hard, in that if you don’t get the ball up, you can’t run your offense, so it puts pressure on you that you need to get the ball up and you need to pass well so the offense can be run,” Stevens said. “It’s really just an emphasis on the team sport that if you don’t pass well, we can’t hit well.”
Atoa praises Stevens for her work over the last four years, saying, “Kat’s had an opportunity now to be able to help secure that position for us and has done a fabulous job. It’s great to be able to see Kat continue to excel.”
Stevens is like most collegiate volleyball players in that she began playing volleyball when she was young, but she is the opposite when it came to her course of a major.
A lot of athletes choose to major in exercise science, but for Stevens, Building Construction/Construction Management was her choice of study.
“Since I was little, I’ve always been kind of interested in the building process,” Stevens said. “My family sort of made fun of me for a bit since I didn’t really play with dolls; I played with those Lincoln Logs and Legos.”
After graduation, Stevens hopes to find a job on the design side of residential construction.
