Williams Makes History as NCAA Champion
2021 Tyrone grad was a starter on the 2022 National Champion Juniata College Women’s Volleyball Team
Tyrone High School has had many great sports moments, most notably state championship teams in football and baseball and several individual state titles in track and wrestling.
Many of its graduates have also gone on to compete at all levels of collegiate athletics, but until this school year, no Tyrone graduate has ever won an NCAA National Championship in any sport, at any level.
But on November 20, 2022, Tyrone Class of 2021 grad Courtney Williams became the first as a starting middle hitter on the 2022 NCAA Division III National Champion Juniata College women’s volleyball team.
In fact, it was Williams who scored the match point in their win over Trinity University (Texas) at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.
Juniata took the first two sets 25-17 and 25-11, but in the third set, Trinity was mounting a strong comeback when Williams set off the celebration by scoring the winning point (25-23).
“It was kind of nerve-wracking because they are coming up, but I just said ‘I’ve got to put this ball down’, and it made its way,” said Williams of her match-winning point, “It was pretty amazing because there was so much energy in the arena and all the support from my teammates and all our supporters, Juniata alumni, and even people here in Tyrone that supported me, so it was pretty awesome.”
(Click the video above to watch our full interview with Williams and former Tyrone head volleyball coach Mike Kraft, with current TAHS players Piper Christine and Rylee Poorman)
It was the team’s 27th consecutive win of the season and the 23rd match won in three sets. They finished with a 34-1 overall record, with their only loss coming to Trinity, earlier in the season, the same team they defeated in the finals. It was Juniata’s third national title, making it one of just five women’s volleyball programs in the nation to win three NCAA championships.
“Last year we made it to the tournament but we didn’t make it all the way to the championship, so we said the first day ‘we’re making it, we’re going all the way’,” said Williams.
Williams’s high school coach and current Tyrone Middle School teacher Mike Kraft, who is also a Juniata alum and a member of several Juniata men’s championship teams, was in the arena to support his school as well as his former player.
Kraft is extremely proud of Williams’s accomplishments. As one of the top women’s programs in the nation, Juniata has a strong recruiting class every year.
Starters on this year’s squad are from Pittsburgh, Michigan, California, Virginia, and Puerto Rico. Other players come from as far away as Florida, Illinois, New York, and Colorado.
It’s an extraordinary accomplishment to earn a starting role, especially for Williams because she didn’t even start playing volleyball until eighth grade.
“When Courtney was in high school, it was definitely a roller coaster ride,” said Kraft, “Trying to find that level of consistency with her play and her emotions was probably the area she needed the most work on. She went to college and had to sit for a year and learn how to compete, she had to learn how to deal with those emotions and deal with the ups and downs…She has been forced to mature.”
Williams has definitely matured, according to Kraft and her current head coach, Heather Pavlik.
“I am really proud of how hard Courtney has worked to bring her game up to a high level,” said Pavlik, “She didn’t necessarily start with the level of experience with the game that some of her teammates had and she has worked really hard to catch up and make herself so important to the group’s success.”
This season Williams appeared in 26 matches with a .319 hitting percentage and an average of 1.43 kills per set and .77 blocks per set. Williams began the season on the bench but worked her way into the starting lineup mid-season.
“It’s so competitive [at Juniata]. You have to work for everything you do, I wasn’t a starter at the beginning of the season, but I flipped a switch and said ‘I need to grind’ and I became a starter mid-season,” said Williams.
Coach Pavlik thinks highly of Williams’s contributions and is looking for her to continue to develop her skills as a player and a team leader in her remaining two years at Juniata.
“Courtney has a really nice demeanor in that she is always consistent with her emotions…She is one of the funnier personalities on the team and is generally a pretty happy person so she helps the team keep itself in a good place mentally,” said Pavlik. “I would love to just see Courtney continue to improve her game and have complete confidence in her abilities.”
According to Kraft, Williams and some of her teammates have set an example for younger Tyrone players and helped to develop a culture of winning at Tyrone, something that didn’t exist in Tyrone’s program until recently.
“I sat in on Tyrone’s match when they played in the state playoffs and it was cool because there were people in Tyrone that I’ve never seen when I coached here coming to watch volleyball games,” said Kraft.
When asked what she would say to younger players just starting out, Williams’s advice was to listen to their coaches.
“What they are telling you is important. They just want you to get better, they want you to be good, they want you to be at your most elite competition,” said Williams, “Take everything that they’re saying, and then take it, put it in the back of your mind, and then execute it whenever you’re on the floor.”
This is Cassidy Miksich! She is a senior at TAHS and this is her first year in Eagle Eye. She is involved in many extracurricular activities at Tyrone,...
