By Matt Browning
Caldwell’s Ella Risley doesn’t have the prototypical height that a hitter should have, but that hasn’t stopped her from being good at it.
“Being a smaller hitter, this season I wanted to work on being more explosive with my hitting,” Risley said. “Another area I wanted to work on was being quicker on defense and tuning up footwork. I worked on this by doing plyometric exercises, jump roping, and just doing hitting and digging reps in the gym.”
With so many underclassmen on this year’s team, Risley knew she had to be a better leader.
“A goal I had for myself this season was to be a leader for my team and to be the scrappiest player on the floor,” Risley said. “This season I was definitely really excited to see what our underclassmen were going to bring to our team, having lost some valuable players last year.”
Risley dedicated much of her offseason to her senior season.
“During the summer I had weights and conditioning four days a week at 6 am, followed with team camps and open gyms to work on fundamentals.” Risley said. “I also played club during the winter.”
The last seasons has seen Risley make the all-league first team. While she has been injured throughout some of this season, Risley has still put up solid stats.
“My stats from this year are through six games due to an injury – 40 kills, 46 digs, 15 aces,” Risley said.
