Five fantastic passers who facilitate their offenses

<p>Serve receiving is one of the most underrated skills in volleyball. What most tend to forget, though, is that almost every successful offensive action starts with a good pass that allows the setter to put the hitters in a great spot to score.</p> <p>These five players certainly don’t take passing for granted and, based on what they did in 2019, they will lead the receiving efforts of their teams when the 2020 season starts.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Clare Donovan – Libero, Defensive Specialist – Eastside Catholic</strong></p> <p>Eastside Catholic tied for the third-highest kills per set (12) in the entire state last season and defensive specialist Clare Donovan played a pivotal role in it even if she was directly responsible for only six of the team’s 947 kills. The 5’6” player, who will be a senior in 2020, took control of the Crusaders’ receiving duties registering 393 passes over the season. She helped to reduce the load on outside hitters Sophia Meyers and Courtney Bacich, who then went to be team’s top scorers.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Devyn Oestreich – Outside Hitter – Capital</strong></p> <p>Devyn Oestreich played a dual-role at Capital’s offense, the sixth with the most kills (1,041) in Washington in the 2019 season. The then-junior outside hitter scored 270 of those points at the net, being the Cougars’ second-best score in the season, but, perhaps most importantly, she made sure setters Maddie Mathews and Emma Hawks were always in a good spot to operate with her team-high 404 passes and a jaw-dropping 96% accuracy.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Eliza Stark – Middle-Blocker – Northport</strong></p> <p>Eliza Stark checked all the boxes and some more for Northport during her junior season in 2019. As a middle-blocker, the 5’11” player fulfilled her main duties being the team’s top hitter (129 kills) and second-best blocker (23 blocks), but went above and beyond and was a stud in the Mustangs’ serve receiving system as well as she registered a team-high 129 passes, good enough for an 88% success rate. Her efforts led the team to have the state’s third-best hitting efficiency at 61.8%.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Hanna Ogborn – Libero - Roosevelt</strong></p> <p>Most of Roosevelt’s state’s fourth-best 1,068 kills started with Hanna Ogborn. As the Roughriders libero, the sophomore split the receiving duties magnificently with senior outside hitter Leandra Lortz, registering 447 passes during the season (averaging 17.2 per match), the second-best mark in the team. As Lortz graduated, the 5’8” Ogborn could be poised to have even more impressive numbers this coming season.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="97056" first="Piper" last="Smith"] – Libero – Lake Stevens</strong></p> <p>If Lake Stevens had the seventh-most kills (1,010) in Washington in 2019, part of it is due to the team’s great serve receiving system, which was magnificently led by junior libero [player_tooltip player_id="97056" first="Piper" last="Smith"]. A member of prepdig.com’s class of 2021 ranking, the 5’5” defender covered a lot of the court when opponents were at the service line as she was tasked with 405 passes over the season, a third of the team’s total.</p>