A sweep of Chattanooga and a second-place finish at the Bluejay Invitational weren’t the only things that the Creighton volleyball team left with on Saturday night. While they were rolling over the Mocs on the court, a recruit for the 2018 class was in the stands analyzing the coaches, the players, and the atmosphere. Apparently, Annika Welty saw what she liked as she made a somewhat unexpected verbal commitment shortly after the match concluded.
Welty, a 6-foot-3 middle blocker, is a junior at Park Hill South High School in Riverside, Missouri just outside of Kansas City. Along with the Bluejays she had offers from Tulsa and Kansas State. Her first visit to Creighton was back in February, two months after the Bluejays reached the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history. She didn’t come back again until Saturday, and while she felt Creighton was probably going to be her choice she didn’t necessarily plan on pulling the trigger that night.
“I just saw the environment of the game, how Coach Booth was coaching, and also just going back to what I thought of the campus,” Welty said of what pushed her to make the decision. “Coming back to Creighton, and seeing everything again, it kind of made me want to make my decision right away.”
Just a few weeks into her junior season, her Park Hill South Panther team is off to an 8-0 start, and Welty is averaging 3.67 kills per set while sporting a rather ridiculous .450 attack percentage. While she doesn’t have any direct family ties to Creighton, she did play with 2017 Bluejay commit Naomi Hickman on their KC Power club team.
As is the case with most of heavy hitters in Creighton coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth’s offense, Welty believes she brings some versatility to the front row attack.
“In the middle I can hit different things like the slide, the one, and the three,” she said. “I’m diverse in that area, and I can also play right side.”
Though most athletes tend to embellish their height for the player profiles, Welty says that her listed height of 6-foot-3 is accurate. She says both of her parents are tall, and although neither of them played sports in college she won’t be the only member of her family to do so once she steps on a college campus in the fall of 2018. Her oldest brother, Hudson, is averaging 5.7 points and 3.6 rebounds per game in his first two season with MidAmerica Nazarine at the NAIA level, while her other older brother, Ryan, is entering his freshman season at Northwest Missouri State after averaging 18.0 points and 9.0 rebounds per game in his senior season at Park Hill South.
Like her older brothers, basketball was one of Annika’s favorite sports along with swimming and volleyball, but with two years remaining in her high school career the only sport she is focused on these days is the one she’s committed to play at Creighton.
“When I was younger I did basketball too, but those were the only two sports I did a lot of other than swimming,” Welty said. “I just really liked volleyball, so I stuck with it. I don’t really know what it was about it, but I liked it a lot more.”
Welty’s verbal commitment moves the total for Creighton’s 2018 recruiting class to three — joining Jaela Zimmerman (Nebraska) and Keeley Davis (Colorado).
Here are the current future Creighton VB commits:
Class of 2017
Steph Gaston — 6’5″ OH from Omaha, NE (Premier Nebraska Volleyball, Papillion/LaVista H.S.)
Naomi Hickman — 6’4″ MB from Lawrence, Kansas (K.C. Power Volleyball, Free State H.S.)
Class of 2018
Keeley Davis — 6’0″ OH from Highlands Ranch, CO (Colorado Juniors, Rock Canyon H.S.)
Jaela Zimmerman — 6’2″ OH from Malcolm, NE (VC Nebraska, Malcolm H.S.)
Annika Welty — 6’3″ MB/OH from Riverside, MO (K.C. Power Volleyball, Park Hill South H.S.)