W OMEN’S COLLEGIATE VOLLEYBALL
Morgan Hentz: the back-court Ninja
Once Stanford gets a commitment from a player, Cardinal As- sociate Head Coach Denise Corlett doesn’t usually spend as much time watching her play. But that wasn’t the case with Morgan Hentz, a former outside hitter in juniors who dazzled everybody as a college freshman in 2016 as the starting libero on Stanford’s NCAA champion- ship team. After the 5-9 native of Lakeside Park, Kentucky, committed to Stanford, Corlett just kept coming back for more. “I’d always gravitate to her court,” she says. “Watching her when she was a hitter and a digger was amazing. Just the shots she had. She hit the slide, a front two, tights, roll shots. She’d tip. She’d hit high hands. It was fun to watch.” It’s still fun to watch, just different. Now, instead of swings at
the net, it’s one-armed stabs and soaring scoops and diving digs. In Stanford’s three biggest matches this season, a win in the regional final over Wisconsin and victories over Minnesota and Texas in the NCAA Championship in Columbus, Ohio, she racked up a whopping total of 84 digs.
Summing up Hentz’s contributions, Stanford senior Inky Ajanaku
said: “Morgan is a Ninja in the back row. It’s really easy to block balls when you only have to block a part of the court and Morgan takes up the other half. The combination together is what made us successful.” Hentz was known mostly as “an explosive, big-range digger” enter-
ing college, says Stanford Head Coach John Dunning. “I don’t think anybody thought she was as good a passer as she was a digger when she got here, but she worked so hard on it and she became the person who directed our passing system.” Her evolution to a serve-receive quarterback who could pass
nails – “she could pass two-thirds of the court most of the time in the last part of the season – and really good passes,” Corlett says – came with the discovery that there’s more to the skill than forming a good platform.
“Before coming to Stanford, I never knew reading on serve-receive
was a thing,” Hentz says. “But John taught me about looking at the server to see where their body is facing. There are servers who serve right on their approach line, and then there are players who have a no-look serve where they may be facing cross-court and then they’ll hit wrist-away down the line. When we scout, we’ll pick up those things. Club and high school players don’t scout as much, but if you watch a server, you can talk to your teammates and say, ‘Hey, this girl has a no-look serve. Let’s be ready for it.’”
When two Stanford outside hitters were sidelined for the season, the coaches discussed moving Hentz to her old position, even though blocking would have been a concern for someone her size. She was willing. As a high school recruit, she chose to make the position switch so she could play at the highest level, but she still loves hitting. Ulti- mately, though, Dunning decided that “if she got hurt playing left-side, everybody would kill me because she’s that good of a libero.” Hentz, the oldest of four siblings, credits her success to the
support of her parents, Mike and Kerin, but it was clear in Columbus that her backers extend well beyond her immediate family. She has 18 cousins, and she says they were all at the championship match, and she estimates that 20 of her friends also made the drive from Northern Kentucky. “They all had Stanford shirts on – I don’t even know how they got them – and some of them dressed up as trees (the Stanford mascot),” she says. “To have that kind of support is unbelievable.” Held up in the middle of her boosters was a sign that read: “We
are diggin’ Hentzy, but she is diggin’ you,” and that pretty much sums it up.
— Don Patterson 40 | VOLLEYBALLUSA Stanford’s Morgan Hentz brings an aggressive mentality to the libero position. (Photo: Walt Middleton)
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