Setting the pace
Not every quarterback wears a helmet and shoulder pads.
Lakeside High School senior setter Lindsay Jelke, for example, calls her signals on the volleyball court, where she will soon wrap up her fourth year on the Eagles varsity squad, including the last three as a starter.
Like any good QB, Jelke says she enjoys the responsibility of reading defenses and knowing which teammates she needs.
“I don’t want it to sound bad or anything,” she said, “but I like being in control. I like the leadership role. If we’re getting too hyped up, I try to calm the girls down and bring them back to reality, or sometimes I need to help people get pumped up.
“There are certain people I need to get the ball to a lot, and lots of decisions I have to make. As a setter, you have to be on your toes all the time, and that’s a role I enjoy.”
Jelke took the Eagles to the 2A state tournament last season, where they finished third. They dropped down a class this year, to the Northeast A League, but coach Kara Moffatt believes that the level of competition, including traditionally strong A programs like Colfax and Freeman, is at least as strong as the Great Northern League, if not stronger.
And there’d be no better judge of talent than Moffatt. In eight years at Lakeside, her teams have won three state championships, finished third twice and sixth once. So one can believe her when she raves about Jelke and her other six seniors: Kia Gibson, Melissa Barbour, Tanya Crouse, Val Gilroy, Tabitha Renner and Kendall Erickson.
“This is a special group,” she said. “They sought me out when they were 11 years old to tell me they wanted to play club volleyball together, and they’ve been together ever since. This is going to be devastating for me when they leave. Almost all of them have been on the varsity for three years, and Lindsay for four.
“Lindsay is our catalyst when good things happen,” Moffatt said. “Your setter needs to be very smart, know her personnel and whom to set in different situations. Lindsay does all that, encourages her teammates and is a cheerleader on the floor, too.”
Jelke was first-team all-GNL last season and second-team all-state. At only 5-foot-4, she’s got enough hops, says Moffatt, to be an occasional threat at the net in blocking situations.
Jelke also went to the state tournament as a sophomore, and qualified for the state 2A gymnastics meet as a freshman and sophomore as well. She missed last year’s gymnastics event with infectious mononucleosis.
She doesn’t like to think too much about saying good-bye to her longtime volleyball teammates.
“We’re together so much, we really are a family—sometimes I spend more time with them than with my own family. They’re my best friends, people I can go to with anything. Like a real family, we can argue but we get stuff settled, because we’re a team and a family and we don’t lose sight of our big goals.”
Her favorite memory at Lakeside, she says, is from last season’s last match, which the Eagles won after losing in the semifinals.
“I remember everything about that last game, the last point dropping, how loud everybody was and how excited. It was one of the best moments ever.”
And one which, in a few weeks, she’ll be trying to surpass.