Because she had never played volleyball before, St. Charles North’s Sidney Wright recalled being convinced by a friend back in eighth grade to go to tryouts.
Flash forward to now, as a senior, and the 6-foot-1 Wright is one of the area’s best middle hitters. She also has committed to Illinois State.
Things happened in a hurry.
“It’s nice to see my development and everything come together like this,” Wright said. “I had never played. I tried out, and it’s just history from there.”
Wright built upon that history Tuesday night with six blocks and three kills as the host North Stars rolled to a 25-18, 25-16 DuKane Conference victory over Batavia.
Penn State recruit Haley Burgdorf led St. Charles North (15-2, 3-0) with 10 kills. Amber Czerniak added six kills. Morgan Raiser paced Batavia (9-11, 2-1) with seven kills and two aces.
With Burgdorf and Czerniak on the outside, Wright’s presence in the middle opens up everything for the North Stars. It allows senior setter Mia McCall to keep opposing defenses guessing.
“It’s not every day you go up against a Haley and a Sidney,” Batavia coach Tom Barry said. “They’re powerhouses, and they showed that (Tuesday).
“When you get good pins, a lot of times you can game plan. Sidney adds a dimension. That ball comes fast, that ball comes hard. When she’s going, it opens it up for Haley. It’s a tough matchup.”
Add in St. Charles North’s crisp serve receive, and things get even more troublesome.
“Most of the time, we can get a good pass where any of us are settable,” Wright said. “Mia can spread out the offense as good as she does, and the other team, it slows them down.”
Wright isn’t just a plodding middle who takes up space, either. She’s very athletic, which makes her unique with her ability to go on the attack as well.
“At any given time, Mia is going to set Sidney and that’s going to pull the middle on the other side,” St. Charles North coach Lindsey Hawkins said. “Because Sidney is working so hard in the middle, that frees up Amber or Haley, giving them one-on-one opportunities.”
Hawkins pointed out that Wright’s ability to be a top hitter sets her apart from other middles.
“She’s very dynamic and she’s very quick off the net,” Hawkins said. “So we want to get her the ball as much as possible.”
All of those elements are setting up the North Stars for a potentially historic season, even though Wright wants to downplay that possibility.
“This season is really special for us and we want to go as far as we can,” Wright said. “I feel like we don’t even really think about it. We think about today and what we can do to improve.”
Despite the fact that Wright has only been playing high-level volleyball for about three years, college coaches started to take notice over the summer.
One of them was Hawkins’ brother, Matt DePauw, who’s an assistant coach at Illinois State. Wright plans on walking on next year for the Redbirds.
“Over the summer, she was really starting to think that she wanted to play volleyball in college,” Hawkins said of Wright. “She had always said it was more for fun for her.
“Other college coaches started looking at her and saying, ‘You’re good. Why aren’t you going anywhere?’ Then I started reaching out to people.”
DePauw noticed her improvement immediately when he saw Wright during the club season.
“We’re really excited about what she can do,” Hawkins said. “The fact that she’s gotten this good this fast, I can’t wait to see what she can become in college.”
Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
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