Submitted Photo Ava Wille signs her National Letter of Intent to play volleyball for Valley City State University in Valley City starting in the fall of 2021.

Valley City State University will be gaining another volleyball player in the fall of 2021. Des Lacs-Burlington High School senior Ava Wille signed a National Letter of Intent to play for Valley City State University while she works on a degree in health science.

Wille has been playing volleyball since she was in sixth grade, starting on a recreation travel team. Once she bumped up to seventh grade at DLB, she played for the school team. Over the years, she played a few different positions, moving from setter to playing in the back to libero.

Out of all the positions she played, she prefers libero the best. As the libero, it’s her responsibility to get things going for the play, which usually starts with a pass.

“I like digging up balls that no one can get to and flying all over the court,” she said.

She has had multiple bruises and a lot of her ribs have moved out of place from the impact of diving and hitting the floor. As a result, going to the chiropractor to have them put back in is a must after every game.

Wille doesn’t mind the injuries too much, enjoying the adrenaline and the rush of playing volleyball. The fans out in DLB supported her and the rest of the team very well throughout the years. She is thankful for them, her coaches and her teammates.

There were a few contributing factors to her choice of going to Valley City. One was that she already knew the head coach Brigitte Greywater from a camp that she had attended just this last summer. Wille had been in contact with the previous coach during her junior year and when Greywater took over, she continued to stay in contact.

“I liked the excitement the coach had for the future and I was excited to be part of that future,” Wille said. “She’s bringing in a good recruited class.”

Going in her freshman year, she may play a back passing position, but work her way up to playing libero. The current libero will be a senior next year and as of now, is set to graduate at the end of Wille freshman year.

After some looking into Valley City State University’s health science program, it seemed that it would be a perfect fit for her.

While Wille was visiting the campus to see what it looked like, the administration and professors were nice and made her feel very comfortable in a situation that may make one feel uneasy. She described the campus as “beautiful” and she can see herself being there for a four-year degree.

She applied to have a particular roommate, who is a volleyball player from North Dakota, as well. Wille said they have a lot in common and hope they can become close friends during their first year in the dorms, as is customary for freshmen who come from outside a designated radius.

Her future goal is to be a physician’s assistant, getting a bachelor’s in health science, then moving on to graduate school for another two or three years.

Her interest in the medical field came from watching the television show called “Grey’s Anatomy.” The characters in the show care for and help the patients in their hospital, and Wille decided she wanted to do the same. To get something of a head start, she took a lot of biology classes in high school, including anatomy.

In one of her classes, she had to dissect a fetal pig, looking into the abdomen, appendix, intestines and other organs, which is what one particular character named Meredith did in the previously mentioned TV show. During the dissection process, she felt like Meredith, but she was working with a pig instead of a person.

As a physician’s assistant, Wille will be able to help during surgeries with minor things, like clipping the end of stitches and other things of the sort. In addition, she will be able to do small procedures herself.

Her first career choice was to be a nurse, but she wanted to expand past that to do more, so physician’s assistant was her step up the ladder.

Wille has high hopes for herself, both on the volleyball court and in the classroom. If she does not allow injuries to stop her now, there may not be many things she cannot conquer in life.