By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
BRYAN – Ever since she started playing volleyball as a third grader, Clare Stever established a goal of becoming just the second player in Bryan High School history to accomplish 1,000 career digs.
Stever achieved the milestone in a Northwest Ohio Athletic League match at Delta. Despite that when she was a freshman, she had totaled just seven digs before putting together some impressive stats in the category over the next three years.
“It felt very rewarding because I’ve been waiting for that moment since I started my high school career,” said Stever. Stever joins former Lady Bears standout Gwen Spengler who recorded 1,188 digs from 2018-21.
“It was phenomenal for her, and I was so excited for her,” said first year Lady Bears head coach Chelsea Cordy regarding Stever’s dig milestone.
“That was something that she put in a lot of hard work into. It wasn’t a reflection of me, but it’s a reflection of all of her effort and all of her extra time she has put into this sport.
“I don’t want to take any of that credit is all the credit that she deserves. Because its all of her of years playing, all of her coaches, all of her family that have helped pushed her to get to this milestone.”
Spengler also holds the school single match digs record of 37. Stever had tallied a career high 33 digs in a five-set match against Hilltop earlier this fall.
“I always looked up to Gwen because she got her 1,000 digs, and I always said that I wanted to do that too,” commented Stever. “It was just very rewarding and felt like a breath of fresh air.”
Volleyball has been important for the 5-8 senior Libero who has been on the varsity squad since her freshman year.
“I played since third grade and I feel like it always has been a big part of me,” said the Lady Bears senior standout. “It’s been like my home away from home.”
This season, the senior had to get adjusted to a head coaching transition when Cordy inherited the Lady Bears volleyball program. “She (Cordy) pushes me to be better,” commented Stever.
After taking over the volleyball program, Cordy pointed out that Stever wanted to be a team leader right from the beginning of the summer volleyball season.
“She was able to bring a lot of experience to our program, a lot of positivity to our program,” said Cordy.
“Having her experience on the court really helped kind of like hold that backline. Just her volleyball IQ with all of her years of experience she was able to talk to all the players and helped keep everyone focused on the court.”
The first year coach credited Stever, who has been a major contributor to the program.
“She is a major contributor from the backline serving and her defense in the back row,” pointed out Cordy. She is like a defensive specialist, so she only stays in the back row.
“With her ability to swing as well, she’s able to get kills for us from the back row as well as being able to read the ball and cover the most amount of ground that she can defensively.”
Even though her career has seen its own ups and downs in terms of wins and losses, Stever credited her teammates for being there for her.
“It’s been fun in that aspect,” said Stever. “I feel like we’ve improved so much like my class of seniors have improved since the start of their freshman year and it’s pretty cool to see that.”
As a sophomore, she had recorded 367 digs, followed by 359 digs in her junior year and currently has 287 digs entering the Division IV sectional tournament matchup with NWOAL archrival Wauseon, thus bringing her total to 1,030 digs.
The past two years, Stever has received Northwest Ohio Athletic League honorable mention honors. She was chosen first team on the District 7 Volleyball Coaches Association in Division IV as a junior after earning honorable mention honors in her sophomore year.
The daughter of Abby and Dan Stever, she is also a standout in the classroom as well carrying a perfect 4.0 grade point average and a member of National Honor Society and a Interact Club officer along with being an officer for FCCLA and involved in Fellowship of Christian athletes and serves as senior class vice president.
In addition, she also plays softball where she was a starting leftfielder last year and also plays club volleyball in the winter.
Her future plan is to attend college to be a pre-med major and maybe continue her volleyball career with the goal of becoming an anesthesiologist.
“If I don’t play for a college team, I’ll definitely play for a college club team,” she added.
Once she graduates from the volleyball program, Stever gives the following important advice to future Lady Bears’ volleyball players.
