Micaela Chrappa Signs to Play Volleyball at Lincoln Land

Front row, left to right, Tim Chrappa, Michela Chrappa and Jennifer Fallert. Back, EHS volleyball coach Mindy McCollum-Boswell.

Effingham High School senior Micaela Chrappa recently inked a letter of intent to play volleyball for Lincoln Land Community College.

"Micaela has played at the varsity level the past two years," said EHS Coach Mindy McCollum-Boswell. "Both years she played back row for me. Her junior year she played back row out of the right side, and this past year she played libero for my middles out of the middle back.

"The past two years Micaela has been a core part of our serve receive.  In addition, she has been responsible for covering the right side of the court in terms of the line shot as well as protecting our setter on defense."

"Believe it or not, I heard about Micaela through the internet," said Lincoln Land Coach Jim Dietz. "An official I know posted some footage of Effingham playing and I thought 'That libero is hustling her butt off.'  I passed it on to my assistant.  In the meantime, I found out her name and everything -- was totally stunned to find out her mom was my junior varsity coach when I coached at Effingham St. Anthony for two years.  Because of that, I sent my assistant and former assistant to watch her -- and didn't tell them the background -- to make sure I wasn't deciding on any basis other than volleyball.

"The big strengths are hustle and attitude.  She plays for her teammates and puts the team before herself.  That's huge in my book.  In terms of work, it's going to be a lot of stuff.  Physically, it's getting used to the speed of the game -- everyone can hit, everyone can serve well -- there are no points you can breathe easy.  Mentally, it's learning a new system and new terminology and realizing you can't dwell on a mistake.  For college teams, seeing someone down because of a mistake -- that's like blood in the water for a shark."

"Micaela's play seemed to elevate as we played tougher competition," said McCollum-Boswell. "The higher the stakes, the better Micaela played. We relied on her to give us "three" point passes so we could run a quicker offense and use our height at the net.  Micaela is a scrappy player and is not afraid to sacrifice her body.  As for stats she recorded 189 digs and 90 service receptions (highest on the team) and was awarded the Defense Award."

"We had the best season in school history this past year at Lincoln Land," said Dietz. "We finished No. 4 in the NJCAA poll, won a regional (equivalent of high school supersectional) for the second time ever, then went to the National Tournament, beat three former national champions (including last year's) before losing in the National Championship.

"We return quite a few players.  Kendall Knop (Stew-Stras) and Izzy Carroll anchored our back row in 2015 and we have Talesha Scott coming back as a hitter -- she made the all-tournament team for the National Tournament.  From this area, we also have Kaley Hennings (Central A&M) hitting and playing defense, and a few more -- we return quite a bit of talent.

"We've signed an all-state player, Kiersten Anderson, who made the USA Continental High Performance team.  She's from Springfield Lutheran, Addie Patton, a big hitter from Dee-Mack (2014 state champs), Kaylee Beekman (Hart-Em) and several others.  We're going to have some great battles in practice for playing time.

"How Micaela will fit into our program is a good question.  I think personality-wise, she's got the right work ethic and attitude.  I know on her visit, the team liked her, and I know she met a few recruits at a tourney back in October and they all got along pretty well.

"With skills and playing time -- that has to wait until August to figure out.  I always keep an open mind about things -- the girls know that, so the returning players work hard to hold on to their spots and the new players know that if they bust their butts, they'll start.  What happened last year doesn't matter."