This year, EVO Athletics 18 Select team proudly boasts not one, but two players moving on to play at the college level after graduation. Hannah Crum and Lilly Meadows were both recruited to play college volleyball, have both earned guaranteed spots on their college teams and have both received academic scholarships to their chosen colleges.

An accomplished leader and player, team Setter Hannah Crum will be attending Hollins University in Virginia. She has been homeschooled for the last two years and graduated from high school early, in February of this year. Crum plays for Bayshore High School’s volleyball team in addition to playing at EVO. In 2017, she was both the MVP and captain of her Bayshore team, the captain of her EVO team and was recognized with the EVO Coaches Award. This year Crum is once again her team captain at EVO and has been volunteering her time two nights a week to assist with coaching EVO’s 11-year old team. Crum will be majoring in Biochemistry. Her future plans include securing a highly sought-after internship with Estee Lauder Cosmetics and eventually creating her own skin care line.

A highly-successful multi-sport athlete, team Libero Lilly Meadows will be attending Clark University in Massachusetts. A senior at Braden Christian School, which she has attended since she was three, Meadows is set to graduate with honors and a GPA over 4.0. She competes in swimming, tennis and weight lifting in addition to volleyball. She has earned awards for Most Improvement in Tennis at BCS, and for Best Defensive Player at Suncoast Volleyball, which is now a part of EVO Athletics. Meadows will be majoring in Environmental and Conservation Biology and Spanish, with goals of earning her Master’s Degree and eventually working internationally.

Coach Katie McDonald couldn’t be prouder of her players, and says she is not at all surprised. A former top-level college volleyball player herself, the coach feels that the sport attracts some of the brightest young athletes because it is an intensely mental game – challenging them to outthink their opponents on every play.  McDonald sees her players learning not only the physical game, but a lot of transferrable leadership, interpersonal and teamwork skills, that she knows from personal experience will serve them well throughout their lives. After graduating from Missouri University of Science & Technology with her degree in Biomedical Engineering, McDonald turned down multiple offers to coach volleyball at the college level and settled in the Sarasota-Bradenton area. She accepted a position as the office manager for a three-office dental practice and, in less than three years, not yet 30, has already been promoted to Marketing Director.

Coach McDonald says Crum is a natural-born leader and a hard worker; a player who always shows up early and stays late, a natural at working with the gym’s younger athletes. She sees Meadows as one of the most mature and reliable players she has ever coached, asking for feedback to improve her game and truly listening, taking both praise and constructive criticism equally well.

Both athletes are excited to start the next chapter in their lives but had the same answer when asked what they will miss about playing at EVO: they will miss their teammates and Coach McDonald. Crum praised McDonald as the best coach she has ever played under. Meadows says she cannot imaging playing without this team and without Coach McDonald.

EVO Athletics offers Volleyball programs for all ages, starting with toddlers, and all skill levels, both recreational and competitive, for women/girls and men/boys.