Senior Success More Than Career-Highs For Resilient DeHoog
October 20, 2017 | Volleyball
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By: UW Athletic Communications
SEATTLE - One might look at Carly DeHoog's fifth year and say good things come to those who wait. But the truth of it is good things come to those who work to make the good things possible.
That DeHoog would be leading the Huskies in kills more than halfway through the season is a surprise to everyone, DeHoog included, but it is a product of years of hard work and perseverance through injuries that sidetracked her progress in 2013 at the very beginning of her college career, and, most frustratingly, in 2015 when she was making a big impact on a team doing big things.
The mental and physical sides of the game have come together for DeHoog this year, and the results speak for themselves. The Ontario, Calif. native leads UW with 219 kills and is hitting .319. Through her previous three seasons, DeHoog had a total of 171 kills. She's also more than doubled her career blocking totals this year.
"My sophomore year when I was playing in the 6-2, that was my first year playing every game, where I had a specific role and knew what was expected of me," says DeHoog, "but I think I wasn't really sure of myself. I was playing okay and I was hitting some decent numbers, but for sure when I was out there the game wasn't coming as easily as it is now."
That sophomore season was cut short right after her best match to date, a team-leading nine kills on 11 swings, good for a tidy .818 attack percentage as UW swept Oregon to improve to 17-1. "The best numbers I'll for sure ever put up, hands down," she remembers with a laugh. "Statistically, never going to hit .800 again, it's not going to happen."
In one of the next practices, DeHoog rolled her ankle, and after a few weeks of trying to rehab, it was determined that surgery would be required, ending a season where DeHoog was averaging 1.96 kills per set and hitting .352.
"I was loving life that Friday (of the Oregon match), it was a good week for me that week, and then Monday practice, land on a teammate and down for the count."
After hoping to be back for a postseason run, DeHoog was told that trying to play through it would be detrimental to her long-term health. She had to accept "the card I'd been dealt." Being sidelined for the second half of a great year was rough in and of itself, but the six seniors from the 2015 team held a special place in DeHoog's heart.
"I remember Senior Night I was a bit of a mess just because I love those girls so much," she says. "The last match when we lost, I was just really bummed that I didn't get to play on the court with them one more time. But I had to roll with it and be a good teammate and I wasn't going to wallow in my sadness too much." DeHoog in 2015 before an anikle injury knocked her out for the rest of the season as UW went on to reach the Elite Eight and go 31-3 overall.
Rehabbing from the surgery was a long process, but DeHoog was proud that she cried only once during the full 10 months, something she credits to "the most amazing human" trainer Jen Stueckle. "I know that if I was with any other person who wasn't as kind and loving and who just has your back one hundred percent, those 10 months would have been a lot harder," DeHoog says.
Being out with an injury can take a mental toll as well as the physical frustration. Many top collegiate athletes identify themselves first and foremost as being great at their sports, so coping without that sport for months can be a challenge.
"You question a lot about who you are as a person when you're on the sidelines and in rehab every day," says DeHoog. "Where does your identity come from, how do you be a good teammate, how do you go about your day to day if you don't get the chance to compete or you don't have the satisfaction of improving at your skills?
The answer: "You find out what teammate you want to be, how you want to treat your teammates off the court, since that's really your only interaction with them when you're injured. So I think the growth I've had as a person wouldn't have happened the same way if I didn't go through two injuries. At the same time, my teammates made it easier and made me want to stick around through those injuries to see what was going to happen afterwards, because that is the kind of people they are."
At the start of the 2016 season, DeHoog was back on the court, but while she was continuing to see and anticipate the game at a better and higher level, physically things weren't all the way back to where they had been before the injury. DeHoog also had a more limited role, as the Huskies went with a 5-1 instead of the 6-2, with Crissy Jones holding down the opposite position and earning All-America honors.
"Last season I wasn't ready to play," says DeHoog, although she did play in 50 sets and had some strong outings. "I thought I had come back from my injury but it was a long ten months, and I wasn't playing at the level I needed to to find myself on the court consistently."
So she just continued to grind away. Another full offseason of work, a beach volleyball campaign, and a productive trip abroad with her teammates in June got her all the way back, and then some.
"I just kept the same work ethic that I had at the beginning," she says, "to try and get back for my last season and be ready in whatever role the team's going to need me."
Now in year five, this is the peak of DeHoog's volleyball improvement, she says. She's been able to put it together physically and mentally; seeing the right things, preparing how she knows to prepare, thinking the right thoughts on the court. The pieces are all aligned.
"Last year I understood the game and saw the game better," she says. "It wasn't as fast and it wasn't as overwhelming as in 2015. So this year, questions of confidence, whether I should be out here, all those doubts don't really come into play anymore and it's more about preparing myself to play how I play and I know that will be enough to do some good things."
Feeling more confident than she ever had in her abilities, there was still a bit of a complication heading into the start of this season. Where exactly would DeHoog play? With every starter back from a team that won the Pac-12, DeHoog knew there was a distinct possibility that she might not get much consistent playing time.
"At the beginning of the season I was expecting my role to be very similar to what it was last year," she says. "'Okay, Carly we need you to hit a ball, come in for one rotation.' Maybe there was part of me that thought if I practiced really well with Jade the 6-2 might get a chance, but I knew if we were a 5-1 that Crissy had earned that spot over me."
That role would have suited DeHoog perfectly fine, despite knowing she could be starting for hundreds of teams around the country. But this is her team.
"This is my team and these are my girls and anyone could be out there and we're going to play well," she says. "I would have been happy with any role as long as our team's playing together, and as long as we're winning, and we're being the teammates that we signed up to be in the core values of this program."
But as DeHoog knows all too well, injuries can ruin the best laid plans in sports, and two days before UW's season opener, Jones went down with an ankle injury, and the door opened.
"I found myself in this role when Crissy went down," DeHoog says. "I tried not to psych myself out and just said 'trust your training, you've been training for the past year and a half, take advantage of the opportunity and whatever your team needs that's what your role will be.' I've been practicing really hard for the last year so it was great to get a chance in a game to do what I've been practicing." "This is my team and these are my girls and anyone could be out there and we're going to play well."
She took her chance and ran with it. DeHoog had an early season streak where she hit over .375 for seven straight matches, six times hitting .400 or better, and finishing with 10 or more kills in five straight matches, after she entered the season with a career-high of nine kills.
During the opening weekend, DeHoog admits she had some moments of thinking "don't miss this chance" but soon it was clear that she hadn't, and her thoughts turned more towards "you've done it and can continue to do it."
"When I knew I was going to be playing the first two weekends, I was pretty confident that my training over the last six months was going to be enough for me to perform in games, and that's still what I tell myself."
When asked what improvements in her game she is most proud of, DeHoog says it's something she's not even that good at yet. For the big lefty, attacking on the right side of the net is the natural fit, and until this year, the left pin was to be avoided like the plague. But now the Husky setters don't shy away from going to DeHoog when she's lined up on the left, and she has come through.
"I used to not be able to hit on the left side," DeHoog admits. "In club, we would run a formation where I could hit a combo in the middle and avoid left side at all costs. So I'm not going to say that I'm great at left side hitting yet, but I'm a heck of a lot better than I was when I showed up in this program, which is pretty satisfying."
DeHoog is a people person, in that the people in the Husky program mean a heck of a lot to her. Before asking her to take on a starting role this season, Head Coach Keegan Cook had already asked her to lead on a team that featured seven seniors. Cook told DeHoog that her role would involve leading off the court and in practice, helping out the freshmen, leading by example regardless of playing time, and holding her teammates to a certain standard.
Those standards, internalized by the players and passed down from one year to the next, are what have helped Husky volleyball reach 15 straight NCAA tournaments and win five Pac-12 titles since 2002.
Every player that has graduated from the program over the past four years has left a mark on DeHoog, shaping her as a player and a person.
"Jenna Orlandini was so dedicated to the details, just how she prepared and her leadership on and off the court was something that I thought was amazing," she says. "Krista Vansant, just how she plays, her work ethic is incredible. Kaleigh Nelson, the kind of friend and teammate she is, the list goes on. Gabbi Parker texted me the other day saying 'Hey, you've been killing it, great job!' and I texted back 'You taught me how to work hard regardless of what situation you're in.'
While rehabbing, DeHoog thought about former setter Katy Beals, "showing up every day for rehab, tearing her ACL at the end of her junior year and being ready by day one her senior year. The impact those girls had, whether they realize it or not, just how they live their lives, were models by example.
"It makes me really grateful because when I start thinking about it there are little things from each of them that they all taught me," says DeHoog.
Success this season has also let DeHoog think more and more seriously about continuing on with her volleyball career beyond Washington, something she said she began to think about again this past spring when she saw her play improving in practice.
"That kind of solidified that I do want to spend at least one year playing somewhere if someone will take me," DeHoog says about her pro prospects. "I think also this season has proven how much I enjoy the game and the work and learning; I enjoy getting better. I don't really want to stop that yet, so hopefully I get a chance to play abroad next year."
The next three months are mapped out in her head, starting with hopefully her longest NCAA run yet with her teammates, and then completion of a double degree, another small blessing in disguise from her injury history. DeHoog is earning a B.A. in Psychology and a B.S. in Biology. She couldn't decide which major she preferred when it came time to choose, then decided that with a fifth year to come she may as well do both.
"That's how I chose, by not choosing," she says. "I will probably go back to school for a Psych degree in either sports psychology or sports performance psychology, but before that I'm just trying to win some stuff in volleyball, play abroad for a minute, hang out for a bit at home in California, and then we'll think about school again."
A breakthrough season as a fifth year senior … sure, it makes for a great story. But DeHoog didn't need any on-court glory this season to turn her Husky career into a success. It already was.
"Success for a lot of people is defined by playing time," she says. "In my view, I've had a pretty successful career regardless of how playing time would have shaped up this year, because of how I've grown as a person."
Consider all the kills, blocks, points and wins to come over the rest of this season a massive bonus.
