By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
The 2024 college volleyball season couldn't have gotten off to a much better start for Washburn University sophomore libero Taylor Rottinghaus.
Taylor Rottinghaus
Rottinghaus has helped lead the No. 24-ranked Ichabods to a 9-1 non-conference record and the former three-sport Shawnee Heights standout picked up an added bonus earlier this week when she was named the MIAA Volleyball Defensive Player of the Week by the conference.
Rottinghaus became the first Ichabod to earn weekly conference recognition this season and earned the honor for the first time in her career.
"It's awesome, it's exciting,'' Rottinghaus said. "I was very surprised, actually. I didn't know that they were already starting up with the awards for the MIAA, so getting that award was just surreal because we haven't even started conference play yet.''
Washburn sophomore Taylor Rottinghaus was named the MIAA Defensive Player of the Week after helping the Ichabods post three straight 3-0 sweeps last week. [Photo courtesy of Washburn Athletics]
Rottinghaus helped the Ichabods to a 3-0 week at the PSU Regional Challenge with 3-0 sweeps over Missouri S&T, Harding and Henderson State. Rottinghaus recorded 59 digs across WU's three matches (6.56 per set) while adding seven assists and serving four service aces on the weekend.
In the win over Harding, Rottinghaus recorded 29 digs over the three sets, tying for the eighth most digs in a three-set match in program history.
"I was extremely proud of getting that award because I've been working my butt off with my team -- like everybody has been -- but just to get recognized even though I don't get to score the points, I just get to help my team score the points, that was awesome,'' she said.
Veteran Washburn coach Chris Herron said that every honor that comes Rottinghaus' way is well-deserved.
"She's athletic, she's fearless,'' Herron said. "She's hard on herself and that's the only part that I don't like. She's harder on herself than I am ever hard on her. That can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing, so we just try to make sure that she's in a good space in her head because her athleticism takes over everything else.''
Rottinghaus was named to the MIAA All-Tournament Team and earned All-MIAA second-team honors as a freshman, playing in all 28 matches and 96 of 103 sets while leading the team in digs with 444 and a 4.63 average per set for the 17-11 Ichabods. She also recorded 78 assists with seven aces.
Taylor is the younger sister of Faith Rottinghaus, a combined five-time All-American libero for Washburn and the program's all-time leader in digs.
Herron said that although the Ichabod coaches purposely try to avoid comparing the Rottinghaus sisters, there's definite similarities in their style of play.
"Absolutely, because both of them just had no fear whatsoever about going to get a ball and thinking if it was going to get got, it was going to get got by them,'' Herron said.
"We try not to compare because I told her when we were recruiting her, 'You're your own person and we're going to treat you like your own person,' but let's just be honest, Faith set a standard here and every other 'bro before and after her will be judged by her.' I've got to be honest with you, (Taylor's) faster than Faith is, but they both just have no fear to the ball.''
While Taylor is proud of her individual accomplishments, she's more happy about how the team is playing entering Friday and Saturday's MIAA conference openers at Northwest Missouri and Missouri Western.
"I feel extremely confident with where our team's at right now, especially going in with a 9-1 record,'' Rottinghaus said. "I feel like it gives us a backbone going into conference. We know we can do hard things, we've overcome teams that we weren't supposed to beat already and with the MIAA the competition's going to get even harder.
"I think that we're in a really special spot and we can keep it going if we keep our mind to it and persevere through the weekend. We have two really hard teams starting off, so it's exciting.''
