VOLLEYBALL: Sterling’s Grace Egan to become a Buckeye

No sooner had the Sterling volleyball program graduated a slew of players headed off to Division I schools than another player still patrolling the court at Musgrove Fieldhouse committed to a Division I program herself.

Soon-to-be Sterling junior Grace Egan announced on Monday that she has committed to continue her volleyball career at the Ohio State University in the fall of 2023.

During the abbreviated spring 2021 campaign, the Buckeyes went 16-4 overall, 15-3 in the Big Ten. Their split of a pair of matches with No. 4 Nebraska in March saw both matches go to five sets. Reaching the NCAA Tournament in Omaha, the Buckeyes beat Missouri in the second round before a four-set loss to Florida in the regional semifinal.

That marked a huge turnaround for Ohio State compared to the 2019 campaign, when the Buckeyes went 15-17, 8-12 in the Big Ten.

“She’s a player that I feel is just coming into her full potential,” said Sterling coach Dale Dykeman of Egan. “Coming into her junior year, she’s still growing physically and still growing into the game. Her vertical is ever-increasing. You’ve got a kid who’s already at the top end of the talent spectrum who, I think, is going to get more height and is going to get stronger and jump higher in the next two seasons, so physically they’re getting a really good kid who can play at that Big Ten level on the front row.”

Off the court, Dykeman sees Egan as a kind, hard-working player who lets her game do the talking.

Egan came into high school joining a Sterling squad already coming off a state championship the year before and loaded with talent. She fit right in from the start. Heading into the 2019 state tournament at Redbird Arena, Egan led the team in kills with 339 to go with 239 digs and 51 aces. She had 11 kills in the state championship win over Joliet Catholic.

In the shortened 2021 spring season, she was second in the area behind teammate Brooklyn Borum with 166 kills. She also had 23 aces, 132 digs and 10 blocks, and was named first-team all-Western Big 6. Her 10 kills, three blocks and two aces in an April 19 three-set win over Belvidere North, a rematch of a three-set 2019 supersectional, led North coach Amanda Carlson to remark, “Brooklyn and Grace are probably the two best outsides in the state, so we knew we had our work cut out for us.”

Egan spent the first two years of her high school career playing on a Golden Warriors team stocked with Division I talent. With Brooklyn Borum now in a Virginia Cavaliers uniform, Bree Borum at Florida Gulf Coast and Lexi Rodriguez at Nebraska, Egan enters the fall season with more of the load on her shoulders.

“She’s going to have to step in and be a lot for this team,” Dykeman said. “It’s not just what she’s going to be physically on the floor. With as many seniors as we graduated out, there’s a definite leadership void. There’s many roles she’ll have to step into and do a little more than what she’s been asked to do. We know she’s going to be the focal point of every defense that we see.”

Leadership has been an aspect that Egan has been trying to hone this summer in club play, where she was made a captain.