Volleyball a family passion for Wold sisters

Alyssa Wold doesn’t remember her first volleyball game.

The West Valley senior’s parents, Darin and Kim Wold, have fostered a love affair with the game that predates their own love affair, never mind their oldest offspring.

“My dad fell in love with volleyball when he was about 18, and my mom played through high school,” the two-time Great Northern League most valuable player said. “I’m sure my first volleyball game came when I was still in my mom’s tummy.”

Growing up around the game, it was only natural that Wold would take up the family passion and play volleyball. Between school and club volleyball – the VIP club program run by her parents and coached by Central Valley’s Chad Coupland – it’s pretty much a year-round effort.

By the time Wold reached West Valley, she already was a highly-touted, 5-foot-9 setter with enough skills to start anywhere on the court for the Eagles. She settled in as a setter and stayed there for all four years. As a sophomore she was joined by sister Bailey, a second-team All-GNL pick this season.

Together, they’ve helped lead West Valley to its greatest success in the sport.

Before the Wold sisters’ arrival, West Valley had reached a state tournament only once. At the 1994 Class 3A tournament, the team lost all three of its pool games and went home after the first day.

Last year the Eagles reached the state Class 2A tournament. After falling in four hard-fought games to Ellensburg in the opener, the team rallied to knock off Mount Baker and Mark Morris to reach the consolation finals, where they were swept by Archbishop Murphy and claimed the eighth-place trophy.

This season West Valley returned to state, but its first-round state woes continued. This time the Eagles fell to Black Hills, but rallied to knock off North Mason and Hockinson in loser-out games and swept Mark Morris to earn a fifth-place trophy.

The last game of the tournament came with a special treat for Alyssa and Bailey Wold.

Their sister, freshman Courtnie Wold, a starting setter on the WV junior varsity, was called up as an insurance policy in case Alyssa were to get injured during the tournament. Coach Drew Wendle tapped her to play her first state tournament game against Mark Morris.

“We were far enough ahead that I could really appreciate what was happening,” Alyssa Wold said. “This is probably the one and only time in our careers that all three of us will have the chance to play together. I really appreciated it. It was a special moment.”

In essence, it was the passing of the torch. Courtnie Wold will fill her big sister’s shoes as the team’s setter next fall.

“We’re going to have a pretty good team back next year,” Bailey Wold said. “We lose my sister, and she’s going to be hard to replace. But Courtnie will do a good job.”

Alyssa Wold shares the same opinion.

“I’m going to work with her this summer,” she promised. “She has all the skills, she’s just a little light. She needs to get stronger.”

Alyssa Wold’s strength as a high school volleyball player has been her versatility.

In high school volleyball, setters come in small packages – feeding passes to taller hitters.

Wold, now at 5-10, arrived at West Valley with the size and skill to be a blocker or hitter anywhere on the floor as well as the determination to play through the back row and dig out opposing spikes.

“That’s been the key for me,” she said. “I’ve always been able to play all across the front row as well as rotate through the back row. There have been times when coach would put me in to play different positions for a game here and there, just to create match-up problems.”

That versatility has kept her on college radar screens since her freshman season.

In the end, she said, her college options came down to a choice between Big Sky Conference volleyball power Eastern Washington, or a resurgent program at NAIA Lewis-Clark State in Lewiston.

“It came down to this: Eastern offered me a full-ride scholarship, but wanted me to redshirt as a freshman and LCSC offered me a full-ride and wanted me to come in and play right away,” she explained. “After I went down (to Lewiston) and looked at the program, I just knew that was the place where I belonged.”

The fit was a natural, she said.

LC State hired former Davenport and Washington State volleyball standout Jennifer (Stinson) Greeny to coach the Warriors in 2007 after three years as head coach at Pullman High. As soon as Greeny got to the Lewiston campus, she began recruiting Wold to join her.

“I think I knew Alyssa was going to pick LC State before she knew it,” mom Kim Wold said. “I’ve known Jen Greeny forever. We went to the same high school and I graduated with her brother. It feels like I’m handing my baby off to another member of my own family. I know she’s going to take care of her.”

Alyssa Wold agreed.

“Coach Greeny is such a great fit for me,” she explained. “I played against her teams for two years while she was at Pullman. Her morals are my morals; her aspirations for me are the same as my aspirations for myself.

“At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go there because it’s such a small campus. But once I got there and took a look at the program she’s building there and where she’s taken it in just two years, I knew I wanted to be a part of it all.”