Hitting the Big Time : For Newport Harbor’s Krueger and Evans, Volleyball Is a Smashing Sport

Above and beyond the dig or the pass there is the hit. Fluid in its development, blunt in its effects, the hit--or spike--is volleyball’s big play. A one-slug spectacular capable of producing quick points and victories.

Two of Orange County’s top high school sluggers are Tracy Krueger and Jenny Evans, who hit big time for Newport Harbor High.

Physically, they have the stuff of great hitters. They are tall--Krueger, a senior, is 6 foot, Evans, a junior, is 5-11. Each has an excellent leap.

But what makes them exceptional players goes way beyond anatomy. It’s something in the way Krueger pushes her uniform sleeves above her shoulders. Something in the enthusiastic tone Evans takes when asked if she’s ever aimed a ball intentionally at someone.

That something showed last week during a quarterfinal match of the Orange County championships at Westminster High.

Playing against Edison, Newport Harbor won the first game of the best-of-three match, 11-5. But in the second, Edison, outhustling Newport Harbor, tied the game at 6-6.

It was then that something happened. On successive plays, Evans smashed a ball down the line. Point.

Krueger slammed one in the middle of the Edison defense. Point.

Evans hit--she prefers “crushed”--another ball down the line. Point.

Krueger then slammed a ball directly down--90 degree-like--into the Edison side of the court. The ball rebounded off the varnished wood and climbed toward the ceiling, missing a light by a couple of feet.

Krueger’s was not match point, but it might as well have been. Stunned, Edison quickly folded on the next play with an unforced error to lose the match. Newport Harbor would eventually make it to the final, where it lost to No. 1-ranked Woodbridge. The teams have split four matches this season.

“That Edison game showed why Jenny and Tracy are so dangerous,” Newport Harbor Coach Dan Glenn said. “Edison was really playing well, working hard, then they make a mistake and, wham, Jenny and Tracy pounce on them. Those two can end things quick.”

And they’ll do it with a smile on their face. Neither seems to take the game too seriously, though each has played virtually nonstop for the past six years on school and club teams.

They are loose and loud. Krueger’s greatest problem on the court seems to be coming to grips--with the grip her T-shirt uniform has on her arm.

As she plays, she is constantly cuffing the sleeves up. “I’m not out there to look good, I’m out there to play,” she said. “I don’t care what I look like as long as I’m comfortable.”

Krueger gets to and from practice and games in a two-toned four-wheel-drive barge her parents lent her.

“It gets the job done.”

Evans, a junior, is much more comfortable with her T-shirt. Her problem is with loudmouths that always seem to be on the other side of the net.

Asked if she ever aimed a ball at someone, she responded:

“Yeah! Oh, yeah. Sometimes someone just really can get on your nerves by the things they’re saying.”

Can you be specific?

“Well, I don’t want to name names. But there is this one girl who talks a lot. So I went up one time and went for her. I got her. . . . It’s not like that is going to kill anyone; it just kind of gives them a message.”

Pity the fool . . .

Like a pair of star running backs, Krueger and Evans pin much of their success on the work of someone else.

Last season, when Newport Harbor was runner-up in the state final, that person was setter Lara Asper, The Times’ Player of the Year who now plays at Stanford.

This year’s girl is Sara Allison.

“No doubt, Sara is the most important person on the floor,” Krueger said. “The setter always is. We can only be as good as her sets.”

They get plenty of chances to prove themselves. Allison estimated that much more than half of her sets go to one of the two.

“They’re our big weapons, so if I want to end a point, who else am I going to go to?” she said.

But stardom can be an exhausting. In the two-day El Camino Tournament, won by Newport Harbor after 13 matches, Krueger and Evans were called on so often that they became delirious.

“It got to the point that we were so tired we were just warming up our arms and jumping. I had no idea what I was doing,” Evans said. “It was weird; part of me was exhausted, but the other half wanted the ball the next time, and the next time after that.”

Said Krueger: “There are times when you’re playing and hitting and everything is just going right. You can’t hear anything or see anything except the ball. I guess that’s why I never really get burnt out on volleyball.”

‘We were so tired we were just warming up our arms and jumping. It was weird; part of me was exhausted, but the other half wanted the ball the next time, and the next time after that.’--Jenny Evans