Subscribe
Karis Wadsack, a senior at Ramstein High School, practices Tuesday at the school gym in Ramstein.

Karis Wadsack, a senior at Ramstein High School, practices Tuesday at the school gym in Ramstein. (Ben Bloker / S&S)

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — For Ramstein senior Karis Wadsack, anticipation, as it sometimes does, exceeded the reality provided by her first stateside summer volleyball camps.

"When you attend a stateside camp, you expect to learn amazing things," Wadsack, a 17-year-old senior, said of the intense instruction she received at a liberos’ camp at the University of Texas and a hitters’ camp at Baylor University over the summer. "I think I learned some skills, but I don’t think it added a new dynamic to my game."

Not that Wadsack’s game cries out for a new dynamic. The 5-foot-5 second-team All-Europe libero-outside hitter has opened the season just as strongly as her three-time defending European Division I champion Lady Royals.

In her team’s first four matches for record this season, all Ramstein victories, Wadsack is serving at a success rate of well over 90 percent, according to her coach, Hia Sebastian. Wadsack elevated her average with a 15-for-15 outing Saturday against SHAPE, and in Saturday’s five-set nail-biter against D-I rival Heidelberg, she was perfect on service receptions and was successful on 10 of 11 defensive receptions.

Wadsack is one of eight Lady Royals who attended stateside camps over the summer, Sebastian said. Unlike Wadsack, the coach knew exactly what to expect of her U.S.-trained returnees.

"They come back a little more solid," Sebastian said prior to Monday’s practice. "They’re better on hand touches, both passing and setting, and are more consistent. We recommend summer camps."

So far, Wadsack said, all those newly learned, imported skills the Ramstein players absorbed over the summer haven’t translated to a more sophisticated game on the floor.

"We’re still working on the new stuff," she said. "If we go too fast, we lose the basics. And volleyball’s all about the basics."

Campers, however, learn more than new techniques. Improved confidence can lead to better play as readily as any on-court move.

"At camp, you get to see the level of players in the States," Wadsack said. "You can see how you line up."

Wadsack, an All-Europe saxophonist who loves to play jazz, took up volleyball as a seventh-grader in the same San Antonio-area junior high where her future Ramstein and All-Europe teammate, Charnel Austin, was also a student. Back then was a far cry, however, from Wadsack’s status in the sport now.

"I didn’t make the seventh-grade team," she recalled.

Rather than quitting, she played in a community youth league, honing her game for the next year’s tryouts.

"I always work really hard," she said. "When I’m starting, I think I take criticism well and apply it."

Wadsack applied what she learned well enough to make her eighth-grade team in Texas before moving to Ramstein in midyear. There, she faced another challenge.

"Ramstein didn’t have a junior high program," she said, "so I looked for some girls who’d like to play. I recruited (current teammate and fellow stateside camper) Michelle Mergens for the team."

After a final season of chasing her fourth-straight European D-I title, Wadsack once again will be looking for a place to play volleyball. Or jazz. Or both. Right now, nothing’s firm.

"I’ll see where God wants me to go," she said.

Sign Up for Daily Headlines

Sign up to receive a daily email of today's top military news stories from Stars and Stripes and top news outlets from around the world.

Sign Up Now