Huron volleyball player recognized for 2,000th dig
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On the surface, a dig is the grunt work in a volleyball match. It often appears as a desperate lunge to keep the ball off the floor. But a successful dig marks a transition in the game, from a defensive posture to one in the attack mode. And in the pantheon of Huron High School volleyball, when it comes to digs, nobody does it better than junior Havyn Heinz.
On Saturday night, when the Huron Tiger volleyball team takes on the Aberdeen Central Golden Eagles, Heinz will earn recognition for garnering her 2,000th career dig. To put it into terms that may be more understandable to those of us more ‘volleyball-challenged,’ Tiger coach Shelly Buddenhagen equates it to scoring 1,000 points on the basketball court.
“Havyn does so many things for our team and our program,” Buddenhagen said earlier this week, “but most importantly, she makes our team better.”
Heinz is a four-year starter for Buddenhagen, taking the court as an eighth-grader. And for the past four years, she has anchored the Tiger defense from the back row, as the team’s libero. Her job as libero is to do all she can to keep each and every kill attempt by that night’s opponent from hitting the floor.
That sounds simple on the surface, until you realize that to do so, she is stepping in front of a ball that is traveling at a high rate of speed, off the hand of a hitter who is intent upon getting the ball to the floor. In that respect, Heinz has been a thorn in the side of most of the top front liners in the state for the past four years.
“I guess I started playing when I was in fourth or fifth grade,” Heinz said. “My brother’s girlfriend at that time played and we went to games. It looked fun and so I went out for volleyball when I could.”
It was through the Junior Olympic program that Buddenhagen oversees during the summer, that she noticed Heinz, as a seventh-grader.
“We had started her as a setter and she was a good hitter as well,” Buddenhagen said. “We had brought her up to play on the U-16 team, as a fill-in. I noticed her because of how she positioned herself and talked with her teammates. She had the ability, but there was a presence there as well.”
PHOTO BY CURT NETTINGA/PLAINSMAN
Huron High School junior libero Havyn Heinz will earn recognition for passing 2,000 digs in her career Saturday night, when the Tigers host Aberdeen Central at Huron Arena.