WOOSTER — KateLynn Riley made her great leap forward in 2008, and the drastic improvements won her first team all-conference and all-region and honorable mention All-America honors.

This season, Riley made a smaller leap upward, but her improvements were enough to land her the North Coast Athletic Conference’s volleyball Player of the Year award.

Riley, a senior at the College of Wooster and a graduate of Westlake High School, led the Fighting Scots in kills for the third straight year and in blocks for the second straight season. She ended the year with a conference-leading 443 kills, 110 blocks, 88 digs and 24 service aces.

Riley’s only the second player in Wooster history to be NCAC Player of the Year and the first since 1984. After making first team All-NCAC in 2008, getting the big prize should not have shocked her.

“It was really thrilling to win this,” Riley said. “Actually, I was a little surprised. Last year we had Ali Drushel as our libero, and she was All-America, so I got a lot more opportunities to hit.”

And that was where her improvement lay — not so much in numbers, but in averages. Riley’s 447 kills and 113 blocks in ’08 came in nine more games than the Scots played this season. Her kills-per-game average jumped from 3.85 to 4.22 and her blocks-per-game went from .097 to 1.05. The figures for both kills and blocks per game led the conference. Her digging went from a rate of .059 per game to .084.

“In volleyball numbers, those are big improvements,” Wooster coach Sarah Davis said. “She has been an extremely dynamic player this year and has become very focused on her blocking.”

Riley led all NCAC blockers despite standing 5-foot-7, quite short for a middle hitter.

Her quickness has enabled her to be the best middle hitter in the conference even though she’s only 5-7,” Davis added. “She has also matured as a leader for her senior year. The freshman girls really look up to her.”

“The surprise was that KateLynn wasn’t sure she wanted to play volleyball in college,” said Dan Berkheimer, her coach at Westlake. “She’s a big track person and she thought she might just run track.”

Riley is a hurdler and runs the heptathalon for the Scots in the spring.

“Track has always been No. 1, but doing both worked out well for her,” Berkeheimer added. “She’s a good example of hard work paying off.”

“I knew I was going to run track in college,” Riley said. “I only ever played volleyball because my friends in the seventh and eighth grade did.”

Riley said she was being recruited for track by Wooster and for both track and volleyball by NCAC rival Kenyon. When Wooster’s former coach, Terri Mason, heard Kenyon wanted Riley to play volleyball there, she began recruiting Riley as well.

Contact Steve Byrne at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

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Photos from Riley’s high schools sports career at Westlake:

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