Ali Williams steps up for Coeur d’Alene volleyball team

The shock didn’t hit Ali Williams in the moment.

When the Coeur d’Alene volleyball team’s best player, University of Idaho-bound Megan Ramseyer, injured her knee early in the team’s third match, Williams and her teammates didn’t have time to gulp.

That would come later. At the time, Williams, who had been sharing setting duties with Ramseyer in the Vikings’ 6-2 offense, took over setting for the rest of the match, as Coeur d’Alene bounced back from a first-game loss to beat Post Falls.

The Vikings had a team dinner a couple days later and that’s when they heard the worst possible news – Ramseyer was lost for the season to a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

CdA, which had returned its starting lineup from a team that finished runner-up at state the year before, all of a sudden was mortal.

The Vikings continued with Williams as a single setter for two more matches. But then coach Dee Pottenger had sort of an epiphany.

Pottenger took a deep breath and re-evaluated things. The only way CdA was going to have a chance at getting back to state and having success was to have Williams hitting as well as setting.

“I decided we’re going to run a 6-2,” Pottenger said. “I had to have Ali rotate front row. It was just a matter of who was going to run it with Ali.”

If Pottenger had kept Williams solely at setter, it would have been as if the Viks lost two of their top hitters instead of one.

“What happened to Megan was devastating to our team,” said Williams, a 6-foot junior. “It opened our eyes and showed us things weren’t going to be handed to us. It made us work 10 times harder.”

Williams will likely end up being just a setter in college. She’s already receiving recruiting interest, and that will only increase in her final club season.

She was CdA’s third-best hitter a year ago. In Ramseyer’s absence, Williams has been the Viks’ second-best hitter behind Missy Huddleston, who is headed to Montana.

“When I started playing, setting was my passion,” Williams said. “But I seriously like setting and hitting evenly.”

Last year, Williams spent her hitting time on the right side. This fall two of three rotations find her on the left side.

CdA returned to the 6-2 at the Lakeland Invitational, which the Viks won.

Not long thereafter, Huddleston suffered a sprained ankle and was out for two weeks.

“(Pottenger) told me ‘all of this is on your shoulders now’,’’ Williams said.

“Ali has really grown this year,” Pottenger said. “I’ve been impressed with her maturity as a player. She’s really stepped up as a leader of the team. I’ve really been impressed with her toughness, too.”

Williams has two physical gifts for a setter. She’s tall and she has big, strong hands.

“She can be deep in the court and push a solid ball to the outside,” Pottenger said. “She has a good vertical. She can jump set and run a fast offense.”

Keith and Michelle Williams have two standout athletes in their two daughters. Ali’s older sister, Sydney, is a sophomore playing basketball at San Diego.

While Ali stepped into Ramseyer’s shoes, junior Isabella Hollibaugh became the second setter.

“Ali being able to step up like she did was absolutely necessary for our team to be successful this year,” Pottenger said. “She’s getting serious (NCAA) Division I interest. She will play at the next level.”

Williams believes she’s had more of a mental impact than a physical impact.

“I think my court presence improved,” she said. “I tried to encourage the team more. It was more leadership than anything.”

The title at the Lakeland tourney was huge for CdA.

“We had to regroup,” Williams said. “After we won I knew we could do it.”

The State 5A tournament begins Friday and concludes Saturday at Post Falls High School. CdA (24-5) takes on Bonneville (25-12) in an 8 a.m. opener.

Williams expects her team to do well. Pottenger agrees.

“It’s not the storybook season like we thought would play out,” Pottenger said. “We’re writing a different story and we don’t know what the ending will be. We have a strong team with strong chemistry and next-level players. We have as good a shot as any in the tournament.”