Steven Wright: Athlete of the Week: Shandon Garrett, Eaton

One of Shandon Garrett's favorite parts of playing volleyball is the back-and-forth nature of matches. Being in control of setting up points with her teammates keeps the game moving — until it comes to a screeching halt when she finishes a spike to the opponent's side of the court.

Garrett is a senior volleyball player at Eaton. In a three-match stretch against Greenville, Brookville and Dayton Christian, she averaged 21.3 kills and 14.6 digs per match and had a 48.8 percent attack percentage in 10 total sets.

For her efforts, Garrett was named the Dayton Daily News Athlete of the Week, presented by Orthopaedic Institute of Dayton, for Sept. 14-20, earning the honor through reader voting at DaytonDailyNews.com .

"I was actually in the doctor when I found out that I was nominated for it, and I showed my dad and I was like, 'Did you see this?' I was just so excited," Garrett said.

Garrett's efforts were needed to help the Eagles pull out victories in those matches. No set was determined by more than seven points over the three matches and meant every point counted. Her numbers improved as the week went on, starting with 18 kills against Greenville and going up to 26 in the win over Dayton Christian.

She kept it going into the Monday, Sept. 21 match against Kenton Ridge with a 26-kill, 25-dig double-double.

"I feel like I play with confidence and I have confidence in myself on the court," she said. "And I'm quite loud. I feel like I'll stick up for my team if something goes down where I'm gonna stick up for ya'll. I love it."

Being more vocal has come with gaining a team-oriented mindset as she progresses through her senior year with seven teammates she's been with for the past six years.

She's also committed herself to finding ways to help others in practice as part of that process.

Garrett is committed to play volleyball at Cleveland State. She has finished in the top-five of the Southwestern Buckeye League in kills after each of her three seasons and is challenging for the top spot this year. She has amassed more than 1,300 kills in her four-year career, breaking the school record for the category along the way.

"I played middle pretty much all the season last year and I really liked it. … There's more going back and forth and it's a lot more running in the middle, but I do kind of like being stationary and on the outside," Garrett said.

Being close to Lake Erie was a positive for choosing CSU and she joked it would be neat if a match was scheduled to play on the lake during her upcoming time with the Vikings.

Until then, she wants to enjoy making more fun memories with her current friends — and throw down more spikes on opponents along the way.