Lakota East senior Ashley Evans signed a National Letter of Intent to play volleyball at Purdue Wednesday.
Lakota East head coach Casie Garland
“I am very happy for Ashley to make this official. It has been a long time coming and a huge dream of hers has just come true today. Purdue is blessed to have Ashley, as she is one of the best players in the nation, but even more a spectacular person. It is so gratifying to see so much hard work and dedication pay off for such an amazing young woman, and I look forward to seeing what her future holds. We will miss her at Lakota East.”
Below is a press release from the university.
The Boilermaker volleyball team has signed one of the nation’s best prep players to a National Letter of Intent to play for the team beginning in the fall of 2013. Ashley Evans, a setter from Liberty Township, Ohio, is listed as the No. 21 player on PrepVolleyball.com’s list of Senior Aces.
The 6-1 setter is a two-time all-state selection and was named Greater Miami Conference (GMC) Player of the Year for the second straight year after a senior campaign that saw her average 3.81 kills, 3.57 digs and 1.38 assists per set, while also serving up 54 aces for Lakota East High School.Senior Ashley Evans, who signed to Purdue, helped Lakota East advance to regional final this fall for the first time in school history. Photo taken this postseason by Amanda Davidson.
Evans led her team to the district and sectional titles and a runner-up finish in the Ohio Southwest Region her final season, while also earning first team all-GMC and first team all-city honors.
One of PrepVolleyball’s Top 50 junior recruits, she earned first team all-state, all-GMC and all-city accolades as a junior and was part of USA Volleyball’s High Performance Junior A2 Team after leading her team to the GMC and sectional titles.
A three-time All-Academic GMC honoree, Evans was a member of the USAV U15 National all-tournament team and high performance youth A2 teams as a freshman and garnered the first of three first team All-GMC honors her sophomore year.
A four-year member of the high honor roll and a National Honor Society member, Evans was named as a J. Kyle Braid Leadership Foundation Selection. Evans plays club volleyball for the Cincy Classics, while finished fifth in the Junior Olympic U15 national tournament. The daughter of David and Ann Evans plans to major in engineering.
Head coach Dave Shondell said Evans bring both high academics and volleyball skills to Purdue.
“Ashley is the epitome of a great student-athlete,” Shondell said. “She is coming in here to study engineering after having done very well at her high school academically. She is a very bold and aggressive leader, which is sometimes hard to find in our sport, and that is one of the things that I really appreciate about her. She has great physicality and is similar to some of the setters we have had in the past like Jaclyn Hart and Renata Dargan. She still has a lot of development ahead of her as a setter since she hasn’t been setting for a long time. She is a high character, hardworking and very competitive individual that I think is going to make us a better volleyball team.”
PrepVolleyball.com’s John Tawa had this to say about the setter.
“Evans is a proto-type Big Ten setter who fits the mold of recent Purdue grad Jaclyn Hart, an All-America who is second on the Boilers’ all-time assists chart. A dynamic and dedicated athlete, Evans has only transitioned to the role of setter in the past few years after starting out as a pin hitter with impressive power. Her versatility – the ability to hit, block, defend, pass, and set – will be a benefit as she moves to the college level. Evans’ physical skills are impressive, but her toughness, leadership and competitiveness are her true strengths. At 6-1, Evans has the size and strength to battle at the net against the physical outside bangers at the top Division I level. Planning to major in Engineering at Purdue, Evans will be designing plans to achieve success in the classroom and on the volleyball court. Few setters in this class can provide the many tools that Evans brings to the game.”
Four players from the 2012 roster will be exhausting their eligibility at season’s end. The Boilermakers kick off a four-match homestand on Friday, when they take on No. 15 Ohio State on Belin Court. No. 2 Penn State comes to town on Saturday when the teams will face off in Mackey Arena as part of the Operation 14K event.
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