2024 Times Girls Volleyball Player of the Year: Ottawa’s Skylar Dorsey

The setter position in the game of volleyball is one of leadership and responsibility. Setters are said to be the glue that holds the team together.

For the Ottawa girls volleyball team this past season, senior setter Skylar Dorsey would have been the Krazy, Gorilla and Elmer’s glues all wrapped into one.

“I always wanted to be the setter because for the most part you are involved in every single play,” said Dorsey, a three-year varsity player. “I feel like it’s the best position in volleyball. While there is pressure to make quick reads that are right and to make a good pass, that is the challenge that makes it fun for me.”

For Dorsey — the 2024 Times Girls Volleyball Player of the Year — being a setter is the only spot she has ever wanted to play on the volleyball floor.

“I started playing in fifth grade at Central Grade School, but back then it was pretty much just hitting the ball over the net,” Dorsey said with a giggle. “In sixth grade only a couple of girls were able to be the setter, and I wasn’t one of them. Then in seventh grade at Shepherd was when setting kind of became a thing and we were asked if that’s what we wanted to do.

“It was probably in eighth grade when I started playing club that I really started to focus on the sport. Then my freshman year I was moved up to the junior varsity team which was a confidence builder for me and really when being a setter started to truly matter.”

Over the course of the past season, Dorsey recorded 626 assists, 82 kills at a .265 hitting percentage, 175 digs, 30 blocks and 43 serving aces which helped the Pirates win 24 matches. An Interstate 8 All-Conference selection, Dorsey surpassed 1,000 career assists against Kaneland on Oct. 10 and finished her career with a program-record 1,201.

“I really didn’t think I had a chance to reach 1,000 career assists at the start of the season because I was like 400 or something away,” Dorsey said. “It was like around that time of the season, I remember thinking I was getting close, but didn’t know how close I was. It was a cool milestone to achieve.”

Dorsey had 27 matches in which she collected 15 or more assists, including a career-high 30 in a midseason match against Morris. Maybe one, if not the most impressive season stat for Dorsey would be that she handled the ball 1,823 times with only 18 errors. In a match against La Salle-Peru on Oct. 1, Dorsey played the ball 97 times with no errors and 23 assists.

“I had so many opposing coaches come up to me this season to tell me how impressed they were with Skylar’s play,” Ottawa coach Jenn Crum said. I’m not sure if I’ve ever had so many compliments for one of my players before and some of the coaches weren’t even from teams we played. Some were just from teams we didn’t play at tournaments. I know how good she is, but to hear it from other coaches is a tremendous compliment for her. She just has a very high volleyball IQ."

Crum said Dorsey would truly fit the “coach on the floor” description, adding there were times she’d be thinking “Pass the ball to this side or that or dump it” and all of a sudden Dorsey would do it.

“Skylar has put in the work to be a great setter, but also a lot of work in being an attacker from the setter spot,” Crum said. “She was always the first one at practice, last one to leave and always asking for extra reps. She has made herself a very, very good all-around volleyball player.”

Dorsey said one highlight of the season was playing in a tournament in Illinois Wesleyan University’s Shirk Center, “It was fun because of the gym and the really good competition. It was neat,” she said.

Dorsey will be continuing her volleyball career and education at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais but is still undecided as far as a major goes.