Harrowing stories from the liberos in the NCAA Volleyball Final Four

All around them are players dressed in red and white. Not Lexi Rodriguez. She wears all black.

Directly across from Nebraska’s 5-foot-5 libero is Wisconsin attorney Anna Smrek. She is the daughter of a former two-time NBA champion. She is 1.80 m tall and can reach a height of more than 3.30 m when jumping. The net, which is 7 feet, 4 1/8 inches tall, is no comparison.

Next to Smrek is middle blocker CC Crawford from Wisconsin. She is 1.90 meters tall. Her father ran Division I athletics. Her mother played Division I basketball. Her brother is a defensive lineman at Iowa. Blocking is her strength.

Smrek, Crawford and Wisconsin are one set behind at 5-2. They know they need points – and quickly.

Rodriguez knows it too. She knows the Wisconsin hitters will swing their arms high, fast and hard to slam the volleyball to the ground on Nebraska’s side of the net. It’s Rodriguez’s job to prevent that.

Merritt Beason returns to serve. Rodriguez guards the sideline as Smrek rises and swings, but Nebraska’s block deflects it back to Beason. After some quick back and forth, Crawford gently steers the ball over the Nebraska block toward the front corner of the field. Rodriguez takes one, two, three quick steps. She extends her left arm and dives, lifting the ball just a few inches before it lands on the court. Rodriguez slides into the referee’s stand and then climbs back into position. She is ready for whatever comes next.

It’s Smrek again. This time, she pokes the ball into an empty area of ​​the Nebraska court, but Rodriguez slips on her knees to grab it. She stands back up and steps back to guard her territory.

Smrek is not finished yet.

This time she approaches with purpose. She hits the ball to the back of the court. Rodriguez extends her arms to her right and falls as she directs the ball back toward Wisconsin’s side of the net. Rodriguez rolls onto her stomach and jumps back to her feet just in time to see her own middle blocker, Andi Jackson, push the volleyball toward Wisconsin’s side of the net. Point Nebraska.

Rodriguez claps the ground in celebration, pumps her fist in the air and joins her teammates. She passed the ball five times in a rally that lasted 44 seconds.

She did her job.

“Lexi takes up so much of her side of the court,” said Olympic gold medalist and former Nebraska libero Justine Wong-Orantes. “And you see her flying around the court, and that leads to longer rallies and tires out the opponent because you feel like you can’t score with a libero like Lexi.”

Rodriguez is one of many liberos in NCAA volleyball who are changing the way the game is played. Introduced to the NCAA game in 2002, liberos provide excitement. They are defensive specialists in the back row who are not allowed to attack or block above the net. They wear a different jersey color. They pass with confidence, extend rallies and hinder shots. They throw themselves onto the field, they sacrifice their bodies, they give their teammates the opportunity to score. They combine athleticism with anticipation to keep the ball from hitting the ground.

“Lexi is always in the right place – you see a lot of defensive players who get a little flashy and out of position and then make a really spectacular play,” Wong-Orantes said. “But I feel like Lexi is always in exactly the right place, so she doesn’t have to try so hard. I think (her) ability to read the game is (elite).”

Rodriguez is one of four finalists for AVCA National Player of the Year and could become the first libero to win the award. She is also eight throws away from breaking Wong-Orantes’ Nebraska record of 1,890. She could make it look effortless. But being a libero requires no small amount of talent. Not to mention courage.

Wong-Orantes remembers a painful game against Wisconsin when she was a freshman. The Badgers, she says, passed every ball to her, some hitting her shoulders, some hitting her chest and others bouncing off her outstretched arms. To protect her, coach John Cook removed her from the serve-receiving position and hid her behind the batters.

“That was the most demoralizing feeling for me because you’re a libero, you’re supposed to be good at passing and having to hide in the formation was embarrassing and it was really hard to break out of it,” Wong-Orantes said.

The position is not for the faint of heart. Meet around the campfire. The final four liberos all have harrowing stories to tell.

Louisville’s Elena Scott, who was named an AVCA first-team All-American, said it’s normal to get hit in the chest or even the throat during practice and it “kind of takes your breath away.”

But that’s everyday life. She has a new horror story straight from the Cardinals’ second-round win over Northern Iowa.

The Cardinals trailed 2-1 going into the fourth set. The ball flew to Scott’s right. She dove; Their only goal was to keep the ball alive. Her teammate and outside attacker Charitie Luper had the exact same idea. She jumped to the left. The Cardinals collided and Scott’s arms became stuck under Luper’s body. She landed on her right side but felt pain in her left lower back.

“There was a sharp, stabbing pain and a burning sensation, and it didn’t feel good at all,” said the 5-foot-10 Scott. “I paused for a while and then said, ‘Okay, go for it because it’s a really big game.'”

She knew immediately what it was. She had suffered from back pain during her high school playing days, and the collision triggered an old injury. Scott battled through pain for the remainder of the fourth set and fifth set, which the Cardinals won 22-20. She finished the match with a season-high 26 digs. Immediately afterwards, she ran to her physiotherapist, who cooled her back and gave her a massage. The pain lingers as Louisville prepares to face ACC rival Pitt in the national semifinals. Scott prepared her body for practice and games with needles, massages and scratching.

Pitt libero Emmy Klika talks about the dangers of diving. During the Panthers’ season-opening game against Pepperdine, Klika, named to the 2024 AVCA East Coast Region team, lunged for a ball and slammed into teammate Valeria Vazquez Gomez. She heard her neck crack as she landed on her stomach.

“I was laying on the ground thinking, ‘What have I just done to myself?'” Klika said. “Because that’s part of being a libero, the fearless attitude, and sometimes you get to a point where you don’t want to hesitate to get the ball and then you run into someone. ‘Oh my God, did I just hurt myself?’ ‘”

The 5-foot-7 Klika, who has 853 career goals and counting, was OK in the end. But she will always remember how her heart raced with fear.

Penn State junior libero Gillian Grimes, who was named second-team All-Big Ten this season, reflected on a story from her time with the club. She vividly remembers playing against a Texas team in a tournament in Indianapolis. She saw the opposing team’s outside hitter jump high and tower over the net. She saw them swinging.

“She hits me right in the face,” said the 5-foot-10 Gillian, who has a team-best 488 digs this season before the national semifinal against Nebraska. “That definitely hurt. I thought I had a concussion, but I mean, you just keep playing.”

She shook her head, pushed her hair out of her face and prepared to dig the next ball.

Even Rodriguez, who makes all the digging and diving look effortless, admits that fear is part of life as a libero.

“There are always times when there is an open, open net and a big hitter,” she says. “Those are always the scariest ones.”