August 1, 2023

We’re proud to be a part of an ongoing partnership with Dick’s Sporting Goods, which is sponsoring our Player of the Week award. We’ll be releasing a featured vballrecruiter.com Player of the Week, sponsored by Dick’s Sporting Goods, on Tuesdays. Below is this week’s Player of the Week: Maya Evens. *** Last year Cathedral Catholic capped a perfect season by sweeping St. Francis of Mountain View in the CIF Open Division state championship match to finish the high school season as undisputed national champions. Mira Costa was the only opponent which managed to take even a set off the Dons, with it coming a round before in the state semifinals. While Cathedral Catholic loses 10 seniors – including 5-star recruits Julia Blyashov (Stanford) and Noemie Glover (Oregon) – the cupboard is hardly empty. Part of the returning core includes Class of 2025 4-star recruit Maya Evens, who was the starting libero last fall for Cathedral Catholic and spent this past club season playing up in the same role for Wave 17 Juliana – which finished ninth in 17 Open at the USAV Girls Junior National Championships last month in Chicago. “I think that was the most surreal experience being an underclassmen playing alongside some of the biggest names in Noemie and Julia,” Evens said. “I played with them in club and in open gym, but being part of that team with them helped change my perspective on how to act and what I should be doing as a teammate. They definitely inspired me and would help me when I was feeling down on myself. They were always like ‘You got this.’ It was awesome. They felt like big sisters.” Evens’ mom – Juliana Conn – coaches at both Cathedral Catholic and Wave and is the reason her daughter started playing volleyball in the first place. With her mom coaching, Evens grew up in a gym but wasn’t exactly begging her mom to play at first. She would pepper and mess around with the ball at times, but Evens needed to be pushed to get her true start. “I know this might sound bad and it’s not meant to, but I didn’t have a super big choice if I wanted to participate,” Evens said. “I’m so happy my mom opened my horizon and had me try it. She said maybe I would love it. I did a few camps and tried it out. There was something about it where I absolutely fell in love. I’m not sure how to explain it, but it’s a different feeling than I ever had.” A parent coaching their child means not only navigating their relationship but the coach-player one as well. Evens said her and her mom have always done well being able to separate the two. “We do a really good job at keeping it separate,” Evens said. “She’s a respectable coach. I really enjoy having her as a coach. I have friends who say they could never have their mom as their coach but we have separated the two really well. If I mess up (playing) she’ll treat me like any other player during the games. After that, she’s my mom and she does a really good job supporting me and being there for me. She’s a really good coach and has 100 percent made me into the player I am and I couldn’t do it without her.” From her first season playing club until now, Evens has always played up at least one age group. She was part of a Wave team which lost just one outing in Chicago, with it coming against Metro 17 Travel in challenge play as Wave finished No. 6 in vballrecruiter.com’s final Top 50 National Rankings. “I have no regrets. That was the most fun tournament of any of my seasons,” Evens said. “We were undefeated until the challenge match and we went undefeated after that. We just had this vibe and were playing with so much passion and effort. We played the best volleyball of the entire season. It was so much fun. Everyone would stop and watch us play. It was the most incredible feeling.” Part of Wave’s run included beating eventual fifth-place finisher Drive Nation 17 Red, 35-33, 25-20, to close out the first round of pool play. The opening set of that contest was arguably the most entertaining one of the entire 10-day tournament in Chicago. “There is no other word to describe it other than fun,” Evens said. “You live for those games. I would so much rather play a team to 35 than to beat them 25-15. Especially a team like Drive Nation with so much hype and which was (the) No. 3 (seed) going in. We are an under-rated small team so it was so much fun.” With the high school season rapidly approaching, Evens’ focus has shifted. Along with her, Cathedral Catholic brings back 4-star senior middle Jenna Hanes (Michigan), 4-star senior setter Amanda Saeger (DePaul), 3-star senior outside Niki Egan (Washington beach) and 3-star junior outside Mae Kordas. While another national championship might be a stretch, together they should help Cathedral Catholic remain as one of the top programs in the country and capable of defending its California Open Division state title. The Dons are facing another challenging schedule, one that includes playing in two prestigious tournaments in Volleypalooza in Austin and the Durango Fall Classic in Las Vegas. “We lost 10 seniors so that is a lot of loss,” Evens said. “Still, we have a couple of freshmen who I’m super excited about plus our returning players are absolute beasts so I’m super excited about it. We won’t be as big and as physical but we are still going to be super fun to watch. We have gotten together running high school camps. We are bonding and making new friendships. We haven’t talked too much about goals or results but we all have the same goal in that we want to win.” As our featured Player