EDINBURG — After soaring to the top of national leaderboards and helping vault her team into the UIL Class 6A state playoffs, Edinburg North’s Evana Ramos has been named the recipient of The Monitor’s All-Area Libero of the Year award for her gigantic junior season.
Ramos and the Cougars entered the 2019 season coming off a big year that saw them advance to the playoffs and narrowly miss out on a district title. The group had lost a good amount of its depth and worried it would have a difficult time building off such a promising season.
But Ramos cited her team’s long-lasting chemistry as the reason the Cougars were able to overcome a slow start to the year.
“The season started off really bumpy because we didn’t think we would be as strong as we were the season prior to this one,” she said. “I think because of our chemistry we really pulled through at the end, and I think that we just became a great team so much of our chemistry.”
Edinburg North dropped five of its first eight contests, but really started to find its rhythm shortly afterward. The Cougars reeled off 20 wins in their last 33 games, which included a 10-2 mark in district play and a second-place finish in District 31-6A.
The team advanced to the bi-district round of the playoffs for the second straight season before falling to talented Harlingen South team in three sets.
Ramos believes her team’s tightness on and off the court was a big part of the team’s season turnaround, and credits the group’s improved chemistry with a focus on having fun playing the game.
“We didn’t really focus on winning; it just kind of happened that way. In every practice, all the outside world things just kind of went away like all of our problems and stresses at school,” Ramos said. “Every practice we would go later because of how much fun we were having. Even in our group chats, people would say, ‘I can’t wait to go to practice because we want to get everything off our minds.’”
But another key to the Cougars’ success was Ramos’ prolific play in the back row as a defensive stalwart and dangerous hitter.
Edinburg North’s junior libero ended the year with a surreal 1,153 digs and for a good portion of the season led all high school volleyball players nationwide in that statistical category, according to MaxPreps.com. She ended the 2019 season leading all high school players nationally with a staggering average of 9.6 digs per set.
“I kind of didn’t expect it to happen. I just one day got out of school and my mom was like, ‘Oh my god, you’re No. 1 in the nation!’” Ramos said. “I wasn’t trying to be. It wasn’t like, ‘I want to be; I need to be.’ It just kind of happened, and when it did happen, I was really, really excited about it. It just motivated me to try to be No. 1 throughout the whole season.”
Ramos developed the mental and hitting aspects of her game even more. She tallied 312 kills on the season off 29.5% hitting accuracy, which both easily set new career bests for her.
Ramos also recorded 55 aces as she credited the improvement of her back-row play to being more patient and attentive to the needs of her team.
“Over my time in high school, I feel like I’ve improved as a player with a lot of patience,” she said. “I also feel like with the way I’ve been playing that I’ve improved my back-row hitting just because we’re not as strong as other schools in the front row, so there was a lot of back-row hitting.”
Ramos, who has verbally committed to play college volleyball at UTRGV, is excited to continue her playing career close to home at a campus that feels like home too so she can continue to motivate those who are following in her footsteps.
“I made the decision to verbally commit to UTRGV just because when I went on my visit, I know it’s home, but it felt like I was even more at home,” Ramos said. “I also want to play here because I feel like if I played here, the girls that are trying to be successful in volleyball and look up to me will be motivated even more like, ‘Wow, she’s playing for our home team.’ That’s better than anything.”