Senior setter Kylie Pickrell sets out into her final year with NC State volleyball this season, taking on a leadership role on the floor.
“We really just look to her experience,” head coach Linda Hampton-Keith said. “She has such a wealth of experience to draw from and she’s pretty competitive. She’s got this fiery competitive spirit; she also knows the game really well.”
Hampton-Keith also explained how Pickrell brought a coach’s mentality to the court similar to a quarterback on the football field.
“As a coach, you want that person in that role to be kind of an extension of you on the court and giving direction and bringing that coach’s mentality to the floor, and she does that.”
Senior middle blocker Teni Sopitan described Pickrell as a teammate on the court.
“As a player, she demands a lot from her teammates which is very good,” Sopitan said. “She wants the best for us, and I think how she always has eye contact after every play, I think that really is helpful as a setter setting to a hitter. She knows what I like so it makes it more comfortable to play against anybody. She gives me a lot of confidence because she’s confident in me.”
Senior libero Makenzie Kuchmaner agreed with Sopitan’s statement.
“She makes me want to work hard,” Kuchmaner said. “She demands a lot from everybody, whether it’s passers, defense, hitters or blocking. She runs the offense, so she has to set a standard that we all are willing to follow because we want to play 100 percent for her.”
Pickrell shared a similar sentiment that her team was a motivation for her during games.
“When I decided to transfer here, the team was one of the aspects that drew me to NC State,” Pickrell said. “Being able to play for them and just how close we all are on and off the court and how much we care for each other definitely keeps me going in games, because I want to be able to see them succeed because I’m the one who’s giving them the ball and that makes me feel good.”
Pickrell further explained how much of a team effort everything is when she was asked about the recognition she has received as a player.
“It’s all really cool stuff, but I can’t do any of that without my team. I appreciate getting recognized like that, but it’s cool to know that I can’t do any of these things or have the ability to be recognized like that if I don’t have teammates who are playing just as well as I am to allow me to do my job.”
Pickrell’s style of play relies heavily on her assists that help to keep the ball in play and set up attacks. This season, Pickrell had a high of 53 assists against Utah Valley.
“I love it,” Pickrell said. “There’s sometimes where I can set a ball to somebody and I get so excited because I’m just hyped because they got to score, especially if it’s one-on-one situations or if there’s by chance there’s no blocker there. That’s the kind of stuff that gets me the most excited is when they get to do the pretty awesome stuff out there.”
Pickrell was originally recruited by Hampton-Keith back when both were at Arizona State. When Pickrell transferred to NC State for her junior year, Hampton-Keith knew what kind of player the team was gaining.
“Just knowing the experience and the level of play that she had under her belt were reasons that I recruited her to Arizona State in the first place,” Hampton-Keith said. “What she’s brought here is a level of play that we’re aspiring to be at consistently.”
That experience started at a young age for Pickrell.
“Back when I was in second grade my parents coached my older sister’s rec volleyball team, and they didn’t have enough players one day so I got to play and I thought it was the coolest thing in the entire world,” Pickrell said.
From a second-grade defense specialist to a fifth-grade setter to now a college setter, Pickrell has earned a lot of confidence in her own ability to get the ball, even if it means running across the court. That confidence can be seen by her teammates as well.
“In the middle, I had so much confidence for her,” Sopitan said. “If she was standing a foot behind me that she would set it to me no matter what. And now that I’m an outside hitter, I know that she’s putting it in a good location so that I can get the point. It comes a long way. I just know that she’s confident in me that if I don’t get the kill right then and there, she’ll put me in a good position that I can get it the next time.”
Pickrell hopes to build upon the team’s success from last season and to create an easy transition for freshman setter Nina Sharpton.
“An even better foundation to go off of what we’ve built from last year,” said Pickrell. “We did so many awesome things in 2017 and then used that to do even more in 2018. And making sure that I’m leaving a good legacy with her [Sharpton] where she can move forward next season and be able to run the offense with the same confidence and be able to take control of her side of the court as well next year.”
