From volleyballmag.com on Rachel van Gorp, their Kansas Player of the Year.
KANSAS — Rachel Van Gorp, 5-9 Sr. OH, Heritage Christian Academy (Olathe)
A tremendous athlete who also is a Kansas 3A long jump and high jump state champion, Van Gorp carried her team to the Kansas 3A volleyball title for the third straight year in 2023. The Iowa State signee had 11 kills, 13 digs and two aces in the 2-0 championship match win, completing a season in which she recorded 397 kills, 289 digs and 79 aces. Van Gorp was named to her fourth straight All-State Tournament team and she is the three-time Kansas 3A Player of the Year. “Rachel is a phenomenal volleyball player,” Iowa State head coach Christy Johnson-Lynch said in a press release. “She’s played at a very high level for a long time. She can play the whole game and has a very high volleyball IQ. She can pass, play defense, hit, serve; she’s kind of got all the skills. Rachel is an incredible competitor. I think when I recruited her that’s probably what I noticed first and foremost. She’s very skilled, but she’s a tremendous competitor and she gets better with more pressure and the bigger the competition.” One Kansas coach likened her to Stanford All-America Morgan Hentz and said that, though she played in a smaller classification, she would dominate at any level. Van Gorp narrowly edged uber-talented junior OH/S Logan Parks of 6A runner up Blue Valley North for the honor.
VolleyballMag.com presents its 2023 Players of the Year for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Thanks to the more than 150 coaches nationwide surveyed for these recognitions, and to the great players considered for these honors in each of the states and D.C. Look for the...
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