Credit to her, Metea Valley senior Katie Schuele stuck the landing.
She isn’t a gymnast, however.
Schuele is a setter for the Metea Valley girls volleyball team. Last season as a junior, she took a leap of faith of sorts, transferring in from Class 3A state champion Wheaton St. Francis.
It worked out well.
“She’s wonderful,” Metea coach David Macdonald said of Schuele, who was honorable mention all-state and the conference’s player of the year after totaling 492 assists in guiding the Mustangs (28-9, 8-2) to the DuPage Valley title. “She’s been a good leader on and off the court for us.
“She’s just one of those kids you love having around. She challenges us coaches. She’ll say, ‘Hey, we need to switch up our routes or our system. I think we can do this or this.’”
Making the move couldn’t have been an easy decision for the 5-foot-9 Schuele, who then verbally committed in December to East Carolina.
Schuele’s mother, Kathy, and two aunts graduated from St. Francis and so did Katie’s older brother, Kevin. In fact, it was Kevin who led his younger sister to the sport. He started playing at the Catholic grade school in Naperville they both attended.
Kevin Schuele is currently a 6-4 junior outside hitter at McKendree, where he earned honorable mention All-American and first team all-conference honors this past spring.
“Me, being the little sister, I got dragged to his games,” Katie said. “And I was like, ‘This looks like it’s pretty fun.’”
Both have played club at Sports Performance in Aurora, with Katie starting in kindergarten.
“I was very fortunate,” she said, “It’s just a short drive from our house.”
She settled in as a setter in club when she was in junior high, but contributed 200-plus digs as a sophomore defensive specialist in 2022 when St. Francis won the state title.
She said her transfer wasn’t necessarily a volleyball-based decision.
“It was mostly everything else,” Schuele said. “It just wasn’t the best fit for me. I was fortunate to have options and just wanted to try something new.”
Her college recruitment happened quickly.
She had sent out “hundreds of emails” to various schools but had never heard of East Carolina. She wasn’t sure if it was in North Carolina or South Carolina when coaches reached out to her via email last October on Columbus Day.
They had watched her play in several out-of-state club tournaments and liked what they saw, inviting her for a visit to the Greenville, North Carolina school, located about 90 minutes east of the Raleigh-Durham area.
The likely education major fell in love with the American Athletic Conference program. Her decision was almost as easy as her transition to Metea.
Macdonald said it was eased by the fact several players were friends from the club.
“We were lucky enough to have her,” Macdonald said. “It was nice she had friends here, coming into this environment. Not being in a public school before, it’s obviously a totally different feel.”
Classmates Jenna Green and Addison Torain are Schuele’s club teammates. Both are liberos, but the 5-7 Torain is moving back to the outside with the graduation of top hitter Camille Morrison.
Torain played the position as a sophomore for the Mustangs, also based on team needs. She’s committed to Winthrop, where she will return to being a libero.
Senior outside hitter Maddie Hopkins and junior middle Olivia Stewart, all-conference selections last year, are also back for the Mustangs.
“We’re trying to be quick and athletic and play good defense,” said Macdonald, whose team won’t be as tall in the front row as last season. “We’ve got some girls that can still put the ball away and a lot of experience coming back.”
Schuele, meanwhile, can’t wait.
“We had a good season last year and met expectations, but you always want to go further,” she said. “We lost the last match in three very close sets. That happens and you think, ‘Man, we could have gone further.’”
