Athlete Of The Week: Hannah Kaminsky

junior Hannah Kaminsky squeezed in this interview on Tuesday — between after-school volleyball practice and running at in Woodridge.

Wait a minute, running after practice?

"I just feel like as the setter, I have to touch practically one ball every play so I'm always running around the court," Kaminsky said. "I just feel like I have to keep myself in shape. And I feel like running one or two miles a day helps that. I want to be in the best shape I can when it comes down to hard matches, and whoever's in the best shape is gonna win."

Benet wins a lot. The Redwings (arguably the best high school team in Illinois) improved to 9-1 Monday with a win over Downers Grove North, the public school Kaminsky would have attended had she not been accepted at Benet — more on that to follow in this week's Naperville Patch Athlete Of The Week Q&A.

As you're reading, keep in mind Benet wants to go undefeated the rest of the season, a goal that Kaminsky and her teammates start today in the Wheaton Classic and hope to finish in the state championship. 

How did you become a setter? I was an outside (position) coming into Benet. Going into freshman year, I attended the Benet Academy Top Gun camp and coach (Brad) Baker just pulled me over to the side. He was just talking about the future and if he ever saw myself setting, and he just talked to me about how I didn't have the vertical to be an outside. He told me I had passing skills, but I didn't have the vertical. And he just said you have the hands to be a (5-foot-1-inch) setter in college so I thought about it and then that season I ended up setting for a team at Sports Performance.

Is setting the most difficult skill to learn in volleyball? I remember the first time when I was doing setting triangles and setting with all of the others setters and the balls I was putting up were going over the net or they were like ... off the net. Setting is all practicing your reps and getting the spot down where you have to put the ball perfectly. I mean, it takes a lot of practice. It's a lot harder than just jumping up and hitting a ball.

When setting the volleyball, how many fingers actually connect with the volleyball? Well, you want all of your fingers on the volleyball. And when the ball release you want a perfect triangle from both your hands. You want both your hands to form a triangle, so you want all five fingers on each hand to touch the ball.

What does the perfect set feel like, compared to one you don't get right at all? You feel good when you put a perfect set up there. Definitely, when you put a set up there for say, (freshman) Meghan Haggerty, and she hits the heck out of the ball, it feels awesome. 

What's your favorite set? I like the quick set; I like running the middle. It's the fast (set). It's the boom-boom one.

Besides actually setting the ball, what else does a setter have to be good at on the court? You definitely have to be good at defense, because any good outside hitter on the other side, if they hit line you have to be able to get it up and you have to be able to — if you're a 5-1 setter and you're playing front row, you need to be a good blocker and you need to be a good off-blocker. You need to cover tips. I mean, you have to be good at every aspect of the game, as everybody else.

Off the court, are you good at setting anything else? Like setting the kitchen table or setting the record straight? Um, I mean, yeah, I can set the table pretty well. Yeah, I'd say I'm pretty good at doing that. (laughs)

Is there anything about Benet volleyball that you've read or heard that needs to be set straight? Well, we talked about this (Monday) before the (Downers Grove North) game. One of the players on the team said there was a blogger who was blogging about our team, saying that we have so much talent but we don't know how to play together as a team. And we used that as motivation. I mean, every day in practice we play together as a team, and I feel like we are a team and we're not all just six individuals put together. I just feel like we play as a team, so does everybody else. I mean, whoever said that, that's their opinion, but we have a different opinion of ourselves.

Do you ever think about what playing for Downers Grove North would be like? Yeah, I've thought about what it would be like to play for a different school and if I had never went to Benet, if I had never made it in. But when we play these other schools and I think about if I were on the other side, I would not want to be playing Benet.