(Graphic illustration rendered with the assistance of ChatGPT)

Herbert Hoover senior Ahaziah Smith started her volleyball career before she was a teenager, but it hit one of its highest peaks this season.

Smith was named by the West Virginia Sports Writers Association as the Player of the Year after she helped the Huskies to a 56-8-1 record and the Class AAA state championship, the school’s first in the sport.

The championship season came for Smith and her team after they finished as runner-up in 2024. Taking the state title became a mission for Smith.

“It was a shocking moment,” said Smith when she was told she was Player of the Year by Hoover head coach Missy Smith. The two are not related.

“I’m confident in myself but to get [Player of the Year] in a sport with so many tall women is amazing,” said Smith.

At 5-feet-6, Smith doesn’t seem intimidating along the front row of the middle of the net. It didn’t take opposing coaches and players long to figure out that she was a player they needed to account for.

To see Smith play is to wonder how someone so small could jump as high as she can and hit as hard as she does. Smith said she has a vertical leap of 9-feet-9.

Coach Smith knew of Ahaziah Smith’s presence, despite coaching at Class AAAA George Washington before the 2025 season, but had never had a team that faced her. She was impressed by her immediately.

“Dominant,” said coach Smith of watching Ahaziah play.

Taking over at Hoover one of the first things Smith said she needed to do was to protect her player against the strategies other teams were employing to counter her play using double and triple blockers at the net.

The Huskies coach began using Ahaziah as a decoy, she said.

“I knew as talented as she is, her role on the team could make her better,” coach Smith said.

Ahaziah Smith also went to work in the offseason following Hoover’s runner-up finish improving her game which had already landed her on the first team all-state as a junior. She was named to the second team after her sophomore season.

As a junior, Smith recorded 440 Kills (48.8% kill rate), .300 hitting efficiency to go with 102 total blocks, including 36 solo, and 71 digs. Then as a senior, Smith finished with 495 kills for a 51.6% kill rate with a .368 hitting efficiency while playing all 152 of Hoover’s sets.

This season, Smith added serving to her game, achieving a 92% server rate with 67 aces. Her play at the net yielded 122 solo blocks with 146 total. Smith also had 206 digs this season.

Combined with the numbers from her sophomore season – 381 kills – Smith finished her career in Elkview as Hoover’s all-time kills record holder with 1,590 kills, a number that includes 274 kills recorded during her freshman year at Capital.

On Oct. 18, she broke the previous record of 1,445 on the way to a first team All-Cardinal Conference selection and the league’s Player of the Year Award as well.

For two seasons in Elkview, Smith played for former Huskies coach Anita King who had noticed the young star playing travel volleyball for the Putnam Volleyball Club.

“Explosive,” King said of her first impression. “She has grown as a player, but the potential was there. She’s already had a great career but to be Player of the Year is the cherry on top.”

King guided the Huskies to their runner-up placement at the 2024 state tournament before she chose to step down at the season’s conclusion.

Smith said transitioning from the coaching of King to Missy Smith came with noticeable differences in their styles, but she took something away from each of them.

Hoover did win the state championship under coach Smith, the reality of which still hasn’t sunken in for Ahaziah.

“It still feels so surreal and just like a dream,” said Smith. “We felt like we all had something to prove. The feeling of losing was on our mind.”

Smith closeness to her teammates led her to also credit them for her performance this season and she credits them for helping her land Player of the Year honors. Along with Smith being the captain of the Class AAA first team, she was joined by Hoover teammates Jessi Crook and Braelyn Adkins.

To get Player of the Year, Smith was voted by the WVSWA over Wirt County’s Addie Stephens, James Monroe’s Ava Pitzer, Winfield’s Brooklyn Cole and Oak Glen’s Averi Martin.