ALAH’s Butcher wins WCIA 3 Athlete of the Week

ARTHUR, Ill. (WCIA) – Savannah Butcher is proving to be an elite scoring weapon for Arthur-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond volleyball as just a junior.

She’s racked up 160 kills, 19 blocks and 16 aces with plenty of season left.

“She’s our scorer,” ALAH head volleyball coach Emily Crossman said. “She’s our scorer… We knew we can trust her and get her the ball when our team needs a point.”

Butcher showed flashes of potential as a sophomore, Crossman says, but has taken her game to another level in year three with the program. The jump in performance didn’t come without a lot of work.

“For [middle hitters] a lot of it is strategy,” Crossman said. “You have to know your angles, you have to know what can score. You’ve got to kind of have a bag of tricks to mix up your shots. So, Savannah has really developed being able to left and right. Being able to throw in a short-tip when we need to score to keep the defense kind of unbalanced.”

“Honestly a lot of time that people don’t see I put in the gym, I put in on my own” Butcher said. “Running, jumping. It’s vertical training, it’s hitting lines constantly. It’s giving everything you have to your sport. It’s a great challenge but I’ve took pride in it.”

On Thursday, Butcher was named the WCIA 3 Athlete of the Week. If you know a deserving high school student who should be our next weekly winner, fill out the nomination form here.

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