NC volleyball star Haugen looking a new direction

When Shantel Haugen was growing up, her goal, a realistic one given her club talent, was to become a Division I basketball player.

But several incidents changed her focus and led North Central multi-sport athlete Haugen to this revelation:

“The direction I go might not involve sports,” the Indians senior said.

Her religious faith, once tested, is now a point of emphasis, she explained. She wants to attend a Christian college and thinks she’d like to coach youth someday.

Before entering NC from St. Charles Parochial School, Haugen’s mother, Suzie, died, causing her to question her faith.

“I still believed in God, but not as it was before or is now,” Haugen said.

Late in the volleyball season of her sophomore year, she was dismissed, along with five other members on a title-challenging team, for a discipline issue.

Later that year she tore an anterior cruciate knee ligament, ending her opportunity to play with the Spokane Stars and be seen by college basketball recruiters.

After that, she said, nothing was the same. Not that she couldn’t play her choice of sports at a small college level. She plays three well at NC. But her desire to play big-time college basketball has diminished.

“I don’t think I want to do that,” she said. “I don’t think I have the dedication I did before. I am involved in Young Life and have really gotten back into the spiritual part.”

Haugen’s high school career began with a bang. She started two years in volleyball until suspended and scored 474 points as NC’s basketball scoring leader both as a freshman and sophomore.

The ACL injury kept her out volleyball and, essentially, basketball as a junior. She tweaked the knee again last spring after becoming one of the Greater Spokane League’s better javelin throwers with a mark in excess of 120 feet.

Through it all, Haugen has regained perspective.

“She’s gone in a totally different direction,” said NC volleyball coach Mary O. Goebel. “She’s just come a long way and matured a lot on and off the court.”

Back in volleyball, Haugen is a team captain and one of the GSL’s better setters, averaging more than 20 assists per match.