By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
As the 2024 college volleyball season wound down, Washburn University's Austin Broadie thought her career might also be winding down.
Austin Broadie is off to a hot start for Washburn volleyball this fall, earning Most Valuable Player honors in last weekend's Washburn Invitational. [Photo courtesy of Washburn Athletics]
Broadie, a 6-foot hitter, had a year of eligibility remaining due to a redshirt season, but was set to marry former Ichabod baseball standout and current minor league pitcher Casey Steward in December, shortly after the season ended, and was ready to embrace her future.
But after some serious soul-searching, the Wichita Trinity Academy product decided she wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to the sport she loves, a decision that has paid big dividends for both Boadie and the ninth-ranked and 8-0 Ichabods.
"I was going back and forth and they let me take my Senior Night with my classmates,'' Broadie said. "Four years is a long time and I got married so I was happy with that, but then I decided I really liked the girls who were going to be back and I really thought we had a good chance and I was like, 'You only get this opportunity once,' so I decided to come back for my fifth year.''
Broadie continues to make that decision pay off, leading Washburn with 77 kills while hitting .399 with 14 blocks and 19 digs. The senior has four double-digit kill matches and was named the Most Valuable Player of last weekend's Washburn Invitational.
"She came back with a purpose,'' Washburn coach Chris Herron said. "She didn't come back just to do something, she came back with a purpose because she wants to do big things. She wants to win championships and see how far we can go in the NCAA Tournament and she wants to be an All-American.
"Those are lofty goals that she has for herself and she went about it the right way, too. She kind of laid out a plan during the whole spring and summer when she decided she was going to come back. We sat down and talked about it for a long time and she said, 'This is my plan and this is what I'm going to do and this is how I'm going to do it.' I like to get my own workouts in, so I'd see her in the weight room all the time.''
Broadie, who is officially Mrs. Austin Steward -- "My name's legally changed, everywhere but here for volleyball.'' -- spent time over the summer with Casey, who pitched for the Jersey Shore BlueClaws in the Philadelphia Phillies' organization, but still got her workouts in.
"She told me she was going to be gone for a month to be with her husband and she was going to do this while she was there and this while she was there and she had all that stuff planned out,'' Herron said.
Broadie earned All-MIAA honorable mention and was named to the NCAA Central Region All-Tournament team in 2024 while also planning her wedding.
"During the time it didn't seem too terrible,'' Broadie said. "I got a lot of it done in the spring and in the summer, so I didn't have a lot to do in the fall and my mom helped me a lot.
"But I found like a note of my schedule for one of the weeks and I looked back and it was crazy. I don't know how I did it, but I got through it.''
Austin Broadie (23) is congratulated by her teammates after a kill in last weekend's Washburn Invitational. [File photo/TSN]
Now Broadie has turned her focus on making the most of her final season.
"I guess it comes with age and being here for five years, but I'm honestly just trying to enjoy every little part because it is such a grind and there's parts when you're feeling burnout and then you have a bad game and you're like, 'Oh my gosh,' '' she said. "I'm just really focusing on having fun with my teammates and enjoying them because they're so great and just trying to do my best for them because I want to go all the way this year and I feel like we have a good chance.''
"She's played her best volleyball that she's ever played and I'm happy for her,'' Herron said. "We tried to get this out of Austin earlier in her career and it's almost like a lightbulb went off in her head and she said, 'Oh, this is it for me and I'll miss it,'
"Obviously this does great things for us as a team, but it's also doing great things for her personally.''
