Back at it

Mia Niekamp's junior year was spent on the sidelines as her teammates at St. Henry led an unexpected run to the state title game.

As a senior, she has another chance to build on her second-team all-Ohio campaign from 2020 while helping the Redskins try to repeat the state tournament appearance from 2021.

"It was hard to feel like you were part of the team, being injured all year, couldn't play," Niekamp said. "But the team really helped me to support me, and the coaches were awesome in that they included me in everything. It really did help me to keep pushing forward and keep getting better and better so I could be ready for next year."

Her previous peak was suitably impressive: an average of 3.6 kills and 1.4 digs per set, both more than double from her freshman year, along with 32 blocks and 50 aces. She credited the leap forward to a strong club season, playing in Fort Wayne for the first time, which helped her expand her skillset.

"Usually I was just local, playing all the local teams, but since I decided to go out of my box and go to Fort Wayne and play nationally, that really helped me," she said. "I had a really good coach who taught me many things that most coaches don't teach you, and that's what really made it click."

After a sweep at the hands of Midwest Athletic Conference rival Marion Local ended the Redskins' season in the sectional final, Niekamp racked up postseason honors - first-team all-MAC, first-team all-district, second-team all-Ohio - and prepared for a promising junior campaign, both for her and the team, which was bringing back six seniors in 2021.

Her plans went awry at the end of her second club season in Fort Wayne, when she suffered a knee injury playing basketball. Quickly ruled out for her junior year, she started the process of 10 months of thrice-a-week physical therapy.

"It felt like it was a never-ending process," she said.

Niekamp's injury threw a wrench in the Redskins' plans, but sophomore Chloe Gels helped soften the blow, thriving with the switch to outside hitter opposite Brianna Siefring.

Stuck on the bench, Niekamp was given a chance to help her teammates when St. Henry coach Tricia Rosenbeck decided to give her a chance to call the Redskins' service zones for a match. When Niekamp proved surprisingly adept at it, Rosenbeck turned it over to her for the rest of the season and through the tournament run.

"She's a very smart volleyball player," Rosenbeck said before the state tournament. "She's been playing forever and she knows what she's doing. I trust her with that role, which is a really, really big role, because we take our serving very seriously."

"Whenever I first started doing it, I was scared, because I didn't know if I was calling the right zones, and I know that some of the players weren't comfortable with the zones I was calling," Niekamp said. "But as the season went on and on, I got more confident. It helped me realize, you can do a lot more things than you think."

The never-ending process of therapy finally came to an end in May, when Niekamp got full clearance to return to the court. It was too late to get in much of a club season, so she turned her focus to ramping up for the fall.

Between practice and a few scrimmages, she's largely been able to knock the rust off and get back to the comfort level she had as a sophomore.

"I think for the most part I'm back to that," she said. "The only thing that's a little bit different is I have a little mental block when I go to dive for a ball. I always hesitate, because I'm not quite sure, but throughout the summer I've been getting a lot better with that.

"My front row play, pretty much everything's the exact same. I just go after every ball, I don't really have any hesitation in the front row."

The six seniors that helped propel St. Henry to the state title game have graduated, leaving Niekamp and fellow senior Mya Ontrop to take up the mantle of leadership on the team. Despite not playing for a year, Niekamp was named one of the Redskins' two captains along with junior Lydia Werling.

For St. Henry, despite the turnover, it's a chance to make another run. With MAC champion New Bremen retooling as well and Division IV state champion New Knoxville bringing in a whole new varsity squad, the Redskins have a shot at the top of the Midwest Athletic Conference.

"This year, I'm really hoping that we win our conference, win the MAC," Niekamp said, "and that we just take it game by game, practice by practice, to try to get to state like we did last year and hopefully come out with a gold medal."

For Niekamp, this season is also her chance to show that her 2020 success is sustainable and that she's capable of moving up to the next level.

"Right now I'm just keeping my eyes open, because it's really hard to get recruited when I don't have tape since sophomore year," she said. "They're kind of questioning how I'm playing, so this season's really going to have to be the season I prove myself."