Senior season blasts off for Ravens' Ruth Witthoft

WINFIELD

Let’s call it the victory twirl.

When a Hillcrest Academy volleyball teammate scored a kill in a Southeast Iowa Super Conference Tournament match last week in Winfield, Ruth Witthoft, the team’s only senior, celebrated with a twirl and a dance near the net.

Then, a Witthoft block and another point. Another twirl.

She isn’t alone in the dance.

And that’s the first thing you’ll notice about a Ravens team that has just one senior, five sophomores and an eighth grader often starting their matches, along with a couple of juniors coming off the bench.

“When we get a kill,” Witthoft said enthusiastically, “we go on a little run.”

This is a team that is in a steep learning curve and enjoying it every kill and dig along the way.

“I am having a blast,” said Witthoft, a four-sport student-athlete who also plays basketball and softball for Hillcrest and soccer for Mid-Prairie in the spring. “It’s because I like to see my teammates grow up and learn. Being an inspiration to my teammates makes me very happy. I feel like I can take pride in it.”

After the dance, Witthoft is the first in the celebration huddle with a high five and a smile. She is the supportive senior helping with underclassmen on a roster that now dips into the eighth grade with Jalise Bailey on the varsity squad, a huge change from the previous three seasons when Witthoft followed the direction provided by 2026 Hillcrest grads Niva Helmuth and Claire Withrow. Helmuth, a relay state champion in track, was the starting goalkeeper in soccer at Mid-Prairie and Witthoft was her backup for two seasons until moving to midfield this past season.

And now, she’s the only senior on Hillcrest’s volleyball team.

“Any senior that you have is critical,” said head coach Tanna Boshart, an Iowa Mennonite School alum who has two daughters on the team. “It’s a little bit more weight on her shoulders, being the only senior. I feel like she’s doing a nice job.”

“My coach likes to say that we have a very young team. It’s very true,” Witthoft said. “We only have, what, two juniors and me. That’s how we are. I feel like, for our team, as a whole, we are very emotional when it comes to games and sometimes we can get very competitive.”

Dial back four years and Witthoft was the wide-eyed freshman getting a new slice of life every day. She played in only two varsity volleyball matches and didn’t start any of them. She still hasn’t started a basketball game. But in soccer, as a freshman on the combined Mid-Prairie and Hillcrest squad, she had the team’s highest save percentage in goal when she wasn’t on field as a position player.

She visibly laughs at that freshman year now.

It is so different when the roster says senior.

“Sometimes I think she can become a little bit passive,” Boshart said. “It’s trying to make sure that she keeps herself involved in our offense because when she’s involved, we are a better team. Needing her to step into more of that is something that I think she’ll continue to do as we finish the rest of the season.”

Witthoft’s energy explodes to her teammates. While she has topped 70 kills for the second time in her career, sophomore teammates Brynna Boshart and Annika Schrock have combined for more than 120 kills, and eighth grader Jalise Bailey is No. 4 on the team in kills. Together up front at the net, Witthoft and Bailey are the only 5-foot-10ers on the team.

The Ravens face a diet of road trips to end the season, including trips to New London, Lone Tree, Winfield and Columbus. After that, it’ll be the Class 1A postseason.

“I am just hoping that we continue to build on what we’ve done so far this year,” Tanna Boshart said. “We are a young team and that we continue to mature, especially mentally.”

“I think the feeling is high for this group,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve reached our potential yet. And so I’m hoping that that happens yet.”

No question.

There could be lots of twirls.

News columnist Paul Bowker can be reached at bowkerpaul1@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @bowkerpaul