| Preston Helped St. Henry to First State Title since 1981
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| PHOTO: Mark Setters. St. Henry senior Taylor Preston takes a swing in the state tournament this past fall. Preston won the Gatorade Player of the Year honors in volleyball for Kentucky recently. |
Taylor
Preston first heard
about winning the Kentucky High School Volleyball Gatorade Player of the Year
award from Oklahoma University Head Coach Lindsey Gray-Walton.
Preston
earned the award after helping the St. Henry Crusaders to their first state
championship since 1981 in November. St. Henry Head Coach Maureen Kaiser
told Preston she was up for it a couple months ago.
Preston is
up for the National Gatorade Player of the Year honor as a result. She is also
able to give a $1,000 grant to a local or national organization that helps
young athletes recognize the benefits from playing sports.
Standing at
6-feet-2-inches, Preston will play for collegiately for the Sooners this
fall. Gray-Walton served as an assistant
coach at the University of Kentucky before heading to Norman in 2018.
“Now
being here and actually winning it, I have no words,” Preston said. “I just turned to
my friend and said, ‘Oh, my gosh. I can’t believe this’ and I was shaking. It
was such an amazing feeling. I know that my hard work has paid off and it’s
being known.”
Preston
recorded 460 kills, 148 digs, 42 blocks and 21 aces earning Most Valuable
Player for the state tournament. She earned First Team All-State and First Team
All-American honors. St. Henry also won the All “A” State Tournament in September.
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Kaiser
pointed out Preston is part of a loaded team. The senior setter Cora Taylor
is committed to Butler University and libero Abby Schaefer is committed
to Western Kentucky University. The Crusaders have two sophomore ranked in the
top 150 by Prep Volleyball. Outside hitter/middle hitter Alivia Skidmore
is ranked 14th and defensive specialist Elizabeth Tabeling is
ranked 150th.
“She’s
just athletic, smart. She’s aggressive even from behind the 10-foot line
offensively and I think that’s what scored a lot of looks overall,” Kaiser said. “She just doesn’t hit
from the three rotations in the front. She is a six-rotation offensive threat
at all times. She’s definitely a one-of-a-kind athlete. She has the physique,
the talent, the mentality and the skills. She’s a worker.”
The award
does not recognize only athletic talent, but solid academic achievement and
character on and off the court. Preston owns a 3.97 grade-point average on a
4.0 scale. Preston also took on the role of a student ambassador at St. Henry
and volunteered locally with the Boonespring nursing home and local youth
volleyball programs.
Preston said
she plans to major in Business at Oklahoma. She’s aware she’ll be required to
attend study tables her freshman year.
“That’s
something that’s super important to me,” Preston said. “It’s making sure I’m on top of my work in
the classroom being a student-athlete. I’ve definitely worked hard to keep that
up there.”
Kaiser and
Preston pointed to the end of 2020 as the start to the journey of the state
title. The Crusaders had their battles with Coronavirus 2019. St. Henry lost to
Dixie Heights playing the junior varsity in the 34th District title
game before Preston and others could come back in the 9th Region
quarterfinals. St. Henry lost to eventual state champion Notre Dame in three
games.
St. Henry
finished the year 36-8 overall. The Crusaders lost four games to out-of-state
competition, twice to Louisville Sacred Heart and once to Louisville
Assumption. The only region loss came against Ryle.
“It just
stuck with us,” Preston
said. “We just knew that this was going to be year. We were going to prove
it and we definitely did that.”
But the
Crusaders beat Notre Dame in both the regular season and 9th Region
championship game. St. Henry lost just two games out of the nine postseason
games. The first came against Notre Dame in the region title game and the
second came in the state semifinals against Sacred Heart.
Kaiser
listed several things needed to win a state championship. That’s a good
coaching staff, talented players with mental composure and some history.
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“When you
put on the uniform, I try to preach to the kids ‘You’re not just playing for
you.’ You have St. Henry on your back,” Kaiser said. “We’ve been around for a very long time. You
represent me, your school, your student body. I will say the student body
played a huge role. When I look back at some of the Sacred Heart tape, the
amount of support and enthusiasm we had in that gym, I would give them two
points for almost every game.”
The third time
against Sacred Heart wound up being the charm when it counted the most. Preston
could not express how much the state title meant for Kaiser. Kaiser was a
freshmen when St. Henry won its other state championship in 1981.
Kaiser just
completed her 30th season as head coach of the Crusaders. St. Henry
finished state runner-up against Assumption in 2005 and 2006.
“It’s
just incredible honestly to look back at. Since it had been so long since
they’ve won a state championship now thinking about it, it just makes it that
much more special,”
Preston said. “To think I was a part of that, it’s just amazing. I’m
grateful for it so much and to be coached by Maureen, too. She’s helped me so
much throughout the years. I wanted to make a statement once I left St. Henry
and I think now looking back, I did that. It’s so much to grasp literally that
we won state. It’s cool to think about.”
Preston
recorded 27 kills on 63 attempts with just eight errors for a .302 hitting
percentage in the semifinal game against Sacred Heart. She also had eight digs
and one solo block. St. Henry lost the first game by a tight 25-23 score. The
Crusaders came back to win the second game, 25-11 before winning two tight
matches, 26-24 and 27-25.
St. Henry
had to overcome the challenge of playing two state tournament games the same
day. The semifinal game at George Rogers Clark High started at 10 a.m. and the
state championship game took place at 7 p.m.
“Going
into it, we knew (Sacred Heart) was probably going to be the hardest game and
that’s what really motivated us to play the best we possibly could,” Preston said. “After we won that
game, we were pretty confident, but not too confident. We had a huge break in
between and we kind of like reenergized, got food and just relaxed for a bit. We
made a game plan to play our hearts out and that’s exactly what we did.”
St. Henry
faced a Mercy Jaguars squad that had finished state runner-up the previous four
seasons. But Preston put up a phenomenal 25 kills on 44 attempts with just four
errors for a .477 hitting percentage. Preston also had four digs, one solo and
one assisted block. Taylor had 42 assists.
“The last
game especially as a senior going, I knew that I had to give everything I
could. I couldn’t be more happy with how I did play and that feeling of just
like kill, after kill, after kill, after kill. It was just an amazing feeling
doing that with my teammates,” Preston said. “I have one of the best setters I could
possibly ask for that was just setting me dimes the whole time.”
Preston and her
teammates know Kaiser and the assistants are not afraid to hold them
accountable. But a championship environment has been built at St. Henry as a
result.
“She’s
helped me to have such a positive mindset,” Preston said of Kaiser. “Playing volleyball, obviously,
you make a lot of mistakes. That’s the whole point of the game. I’ll make
mistakes and I’ll just get in my head. I think one thing that’s so special is
she’s helped me just to let it go. She’s really helped me know that I am that
player out there on the court and I need to be there for my team. This past
year, she’s brough out team together so much. I think that’s one of the biggest
reasons that we won is because we played for each other. She put it out there
for us. We felt like such a family. That’s something that’s always going to
hold a place in my heart.”
Preston will
work on improving her all-around game playing for the Northern Kentucky
Volleyball Club this spring. Preston has played middle blocker and outside
hitter in her volleyball career. But she’ll mostly play outside hitter at
Oklahoma. She enjoys meeting and playing against other players from across the
country in club volleyball.
“In club,
you’re playing so much more competitively because you’re playing players from
all over the country,” Preston said. “I think that really helps build mentally because going
into some games, they have such good players. You know you have to be mentally
strong going into it, just be confident and not play down to a lower level. It
makes me want to play harder because I want to go out there and beat them.”
Preston will try to help the Sooners return to
the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019 when they finished 19-9
including an 11-5 mark in Big 12 play. That team lost to Rice, 3-0 (25-18,
25-22, 25-19) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Oklahoma finished 10-17
this past season with a 4-12 mark in Big 12 action.
