A strong senior season has helped Hannah Rhoads cap her volleyball career with the Lori Koker Award as Pickaway County’s top senior volleyball player.
“As soon as we started in the summer, she fit right into the role as team captain,” Logan Elm coach Aaron Ridenour said. “She’s kind of quiet but she’s got the brain power to make sure we get everything in the right place and where we need it.
“Her progression started clear back in fifth and sixth grade, since we’ve been here. Each year it’s getting a little bit better and more knowledge. So, the last couple of years, definitely her commitment, knowledge of the game and overall skills of the game have gotten better.”
“It was a lot of fun,” Rhoads said of her senior season. “I enjoyed the team this year. We were very tight knit.”
Rhoads’ main job on the floor was to set up the team’s hitters. And she was good at it. She finished her senior season with 542 assists and had 1,644 over her three-year varsity career.
“I always have to look at the ball, make sure I know where I want the ball to go and see who’s hot at the time so they can place the ball correctly on the court,” Rhoads said. “Sophomore year I helped set (Breanne Williams). It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot from her. Junior year I played all the way around. That’s where I got my most assists and learned more about the team.
“This year I was also a setter with Kiki (Kiannah Ingram). I helped teach her a lot and it was really fun to teach a new, younger person how to take that role.”
“To be successful at this level, you have to have a good setter. If you don’t have that position handled, it just makes it much harder for everything,” Ridenour sad. “As you can see in the last two seasons, we put together 30 wins and most of those balls went through Hannah.”
Rhoads recorded a season-high 39 assists in a district quarterfinal tournament win over Gallia Academy. She had a career-high 48 assists as a junior in a win over Teays Valley and twice recorded 47 assists last season.
She also finishes her career with a 93 percent serving efficiency and more than 600 digs.
As a senior, the team captain saw her role as bringing positive leadership to the team to help develop the underclassmen.
“I just tried to be encouraging because I remember I always looked up to the seniors and I looked to their attitudes to try to increase my positivity around them so they could play better,” Rhoads said.
When next fall rolls around, Rhoads – a National Honor Society member who has a 4.0 GPA and is ranked No. 1 in her class – plans to be taking classes at Ohio University in Chillicothe in the pursuit of a nursing career.
Rhoads is the second winner of the Lori Koker Award, which was established in 2023. Circleville’s Gabby McConnell was the inaugural winner last season.
The Koker File
Lori Koker began her coaching career at Westfall in 1997. During 14 seasons with the Mustangs, her teams posted a 273-86 record as they claimed two Scioto Valley Conference titles, 13 sectional titles, 11 district championships, were twice regional runner-up and made three straight trips to the Final Four.
Koker then spent six seasons at Zane Trace where she claimed an SVC title, five sectionals and another district.
Most recently, the Hall of Fame coach spent three seasons at the helm of Southeastern where, among other accomplishments, she earned her 400th win as a coach.
A leader in the gym, she also was a fighter off the court where she had beaten back cancer once before it ultimately claimed her life this year.