Athletes in Rock Hill Schools are making ‘a big impact’ beyond fall sports. Here’s how
Northwestern hitter Kendall Strader’s spike skidded over the net tape and landed on the South Pointe side, and that was it.
After four sets of battle on Wednesday night in the Northwestern gym — four sets of loud high school student sections exchanging “We can’t hear you!” chants and four sets of beautiful, anyone-can-win chaos — the home-side Trojan volleyball team emerged victorious, 3-1 (25-15, 31-33, 25-22, 25-19).
On this day, though, the whole Rock Hill community appeared to win, too.
This fall sports season, the three Rock Hill high school athletic departments have renewed a commitment to community service and engagement, school officials said. They’ve done so in a variety of ways a few months into the 2021-22 school year: Student-athletes have read to Rock Hill school district elementary schools, done community cleanups, volunteered at Miracle Park and more.
And that giving spirit was present Wednesday night.
The Northwestern and South Pointe volleyball teams have been alternating stocking local pantries every week since August. During Wednesday’s match, the teams collected another big box of non-perishable food items from fans and parents to later donate.
“Here at Northwestern, we want to dominate in the classroom, in the community and then lastly on the court,” Trojan volleyball head coach Hunter Moxley said in an interview Wednesday, fresh off the win on his birthday.
Moxley grew up in Rock Hill, went to Rock Hill High and was an assistant volleyball coach at South Pointe for three years before taking the Northwestern head job in 2020. (His Trojans, after years of getting lost in the 5A pack, won a region championship in his first season.)
“I’m proud of the girls,” he added. “They go out there and try to feed and take care of people out there in the community. It’s huge for me, being in Rock Hill all my life, and I think it’s great for these young ladies.”
Hayes Nunn, a junior middle on the Northwestern volleyball team, said she and her teammates have seen that a lot of people giving the smallest things “can go a long way.”
“COVID especially opened our eyes just how much people depended on other people,” Nunn said. “We really love doing this.”
Kiyah Watson, a junior middle on South Pointe’s volleyball team, shared Nunn’s sentiment.
“It helps us be together as a team, also,” Watson said, “because I feel like everybody coming together as one is really helpful, and we’re like family.”
Said South Pointe head volleyball coach David Deyton: “We gotta take care of the community. So many of them come from middle-class (homes), and they don’t understand what their peers come from. So just getting them out and seeing all of (the community) is good for them.”
LeAnne Skroban, who serves both the South Pointe and Northwestern volleyball teams in a variety of ways through FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes), was present Wednesday, too.
As someone who began this work because she was passionate about lifting up women in sports — and who has been acquainted with the South Pointe team for three years and Northwestern for two (coming over after Moxley started coaching at Northwestern) — she couldn’t miss this game.
“These games are especially sweet,” she said with a big smile, “because it’s all my girls.”
Skroban said her primary role is to “be present” for all of the girls she works with — whether that means helping them with the stresses of school or day-to-day life, or guiding them through the college admissions process.
This year, she’s helped spearhead these two volleyball teams’ community service efforts.
“I think it’s finding any little piece of a job that would make your community better, and then doing it to the very best of your ability,” she said. “Giving it all 100%, so that small thing you do makes a big impact.”
After the match Wednesday, South Pointe and Northwestern volleyball players gathered and took a picture behind the box of canned food they collected.
To athletic director Jimmy Duncan — who said NHS athletes have notched over 250 hours of community service so far this year — he saw a scene where “everyone came together for a cause that’s bigger than sports and bigger than that game.”
“As I’ve said before, the community supports us in so many ways, you know?” Duncan said. “And for us to give back, not only (at the match) and each week as these teams are alternating, but with all the community service our student-athletes are doing, it’s cool to see.”
This story was originally published September 23, 2021 at 12:31 PM.
.jpeg)