POWER HITTER: Princeton University women’s volleyball player Kamryn Chaney displays her hitting form. Sophomore star Chaney leads Princeton and the Ivy League in kills this season with 211. The Tigers, now 4-9 overall and 2-2 Ivy, host Harvard on October 11 and Dartmouth on October 12. (Photo by Greg Carroccio/Sideline Photography, provided courtesy of Princeton Athletics)

By Justin Feil

Kamryn Chaney can fill a stat sheet, but she wants to do even more.

The Princeton University women’s volleyball sophomore star recorded 34 kills in a 3-2 loss to High Point on September 21, a total not seen in more than a decade from an Ivy League player.

“It felt great,” said Chaney, a 6’1 Chicago resident. “I was exhausted after that game, but in the moment the adrenaline was up. We were connecting so well as a team and I was just kind of on. It was like a switch that turned on for me. And I was just kind of hitting wherever and scoring points all over the place. It was a great start for this season.”

Now she’s working on rounding out her game and becoming more of a leader vocally while improving the consistency of her energy and play.

“You can be a very skillful player, you can be really great, you can hustle,” said Chaney, who leads Princeton and the Ivy League in kills with 211. “But it’s a difference when you make a culture on the court, when you’re speaking, when you’re leading and there’s a sense of almost reassurance and peace on the team with one player. So I’m trying to really be that for my team right now, a big voice and kind of like our reset.”

Chaney and the Tigers endured a tough eight-match losing stretch in which four of their losses came by heartbreaking 3-2 counts before winning two of their last three matches once Ivy play began. They split the first Ivy weekend with travel partner Penn, losing 3-1 on September 27 and winning 3-1 a day later, and then beat Brown 3-0 on Friday and lost 3-1 at Yale on Saturday to start the conference schedule 2-2.

“Our team has been up and down,” said Princeton head coach Sabrina King. “The talent is there, the consistency is not. I think our goals are just to keep getting better every single weekend and we’re getting a couple kids back from injury and so hopefully that will help us and we can just make strides every weekend. I think our team is doing a little bit better in just managing our energy and just playing with a little bit more consistency.”

Chaney had 14 kills in the 26-24, 25-15, 25-23 win over Brown on Friday night, including the final kill of the game after Brown trimmed Princeton’s lead in the third game to 24-23 with three straight points. Chaney also had a pair of aces to lead the Tigers, tied Valerie Nutakor for the team lead with nine digs, and added two blocks. The next day, she had a match-high 24 kills and four digs in a 3-1 loss at Yale.

“She’s that machine,” said King. “She’s phenomenal. She really is. And she’s so fun to watch. She’s such a productive hitter. And she’s a great blocker. That’s another thing that you don’t see much in the stats because it’s just really hard to get a real block. But she’s a fantastic blocker. Her passing has improved too. She wasn’t even a six-rotation player last year for us really because her serve receive was more inconsistent, but this year it’s quite good. So we feel very comfortable leaving her in all six rotations and she serves great. She has this killer jump serve.”

Chaney is certainly capable of carrying the team, although that’s a lot to ask in her second year of college.

“It is, but I also think that that’s what she wants,” said King. “She just is not quite sure how to do it yet. And so it’s like we’re trying to sort of put a mirror up to her. Sometimes she doesn’t realize what her emotions look like when she’s not fully engaged or whatever.”

Chaney wants to be good at every aspect of the game, and she has improved from a tremendous freshman season in which she was named second team All-Ivy League. She’s also working on the less tangible side of things. She didn’t speak up much last year. That didn’t seem her role as a freshman. But this year it’s been an emphasis.

“My biggest focus for my coaches was being a bigger voice because I can do the skill stuff, I can score the points, do my job,” said Chaney. “But can I also help lead my team? Can I help my teammate when we’re passing? In what ways can I contribute that are not on the court skillfully?”

When Chaney puts everything together, it’s going to be an even scarier proposition for opponents. She’s already taken a big jump after one college season.

“Her growth has been tremendous actually,” said King. “She physically is, I think, the most dominant player in the Ivy League, and she’s working on managing her mindset and emotion. She wants to do everything. She wants to kill every single ball, she wants to pass every single ball perfectly, and so she can’t let her pursuit of perfection get in the way of the next ball. When her energy goes down, when she’s feeling like she’s not performing well, the whole team just follows her. And she has to realize that.”

Chaney is trying to do all she can to help the team finish the season strong. Princeton is 4-9 overall, 2-2 in Ivy play heading into a home weekend at Dillon Gym. The Tigers host Harvard on Friday and Dartmouth on Saturday.

“Our most important thing right now is staying high, staying up because our team tends to get a little low sometimes when other teams push up against us and we kind of get chaotic,” said Chaney. “So staying controlled on our side and maintaining control and maintaining some clean volleyball play as I like to call it. It may be chaotic, but we’re clean. We have solid blocks, we’re doing everything technically well, everybody’s playing their role, everybody’s doing their job very well. And we are also a very energetic team. We feed off of energy. So keeping that energy high for us is very important as well. And overall team connection and communication is very big for our success so I’m excited.”

The Tigers are excited to see Chaney’s continued development. It’s been a steady climb for Chaney, who comes from a family of basketball players. But when her family moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., Chaney gravitated to volleyball after watching her babysitter, Molly Toon, at the University of Michigan.

“I was the first person in my family to actually play volleyball,” said Chaney. “Really all because of Molly Toon is why I started to play volleyball. I went to her game. I loved it.”

Toon, a high-energy player who was tragically killed in 2021, would be thrilled to see how far Chaney has come. Chaney started playing in small church league, but in middle school she moved to club volleyball and got more serious. She became a first team All-America player in high school and National Player of the Year finalist, and she brought her skills to Princeton.

“It was very important for high academics and a balance of good volleyball so I thought Princeton was a really good choice in that path,” said Chaney. “And I really loved when I came on the visit. I loved the girls, I loved the culture. It was a very competitive culture and great academics so I kind of have the best of both worlds.”

Chaney had a big impact in her first year at Princeton, and she’s working to build on it as a more complete athlete than a year ago. She’s stepping out of her comfort zone on the court to take on an increased role.

“I feel a lot more responsibility and I do feel like a leader,” said Chaney. “I’m a leader for the freshman underclassmen, so really stepping in to make an impact and lead our freshmen coming in to make them feel comfortable to kind of make the transition smooth for them is very important for me. And I guess communicating with our captains now because at first I didn’t communicate, I didn’t have anything to say.”

Chaney could have plenty to say years from now if she stays interested in her work experience. Last summer, she interned with the Chicago Sky of the WNBA. Her aunts are analysts, and she took away a sense that she might one day be interested in doing the same.

“There were so many amazing things that I saw,” said Chaney. “The number one amazing thing for me was seeing a lot of women in media.”

Chaney also appreciated the impressive size of the WNBA players.

“They towered over me,” said Chaney. “I was not expecting that. They made me look extremely small.”

Being small isn’t something that Chaney is accustomed to. She’s been a big force for the Princeton volleyball team through her first season and a half, and as her voice grows and she finds herself leading the Tigers in other ways than on-court statistics, she’s certain to become even bigger.

“I was not a speak up person,” said Chaney. “I was kind of focused on just the technical and skillful parts of volleyball so I didn’t talk that much. And this season, I think I’m even celebrating a lot more than I was last year, falling on the ground celebrating. So it’s been pretty good. It’s been fun. It’s nice to bring that energy for the team.”