Kenisha Martinez made her presence felt early and often this volleyball season for the Sharyland High Rattlers.
In fact, the season had barely started when one District 31-5A coach said “she’s gonna be a force we are gonna have to deal with for the next few years.”
Martinez led her teams in kills and was one of the top hitters in the Rio Grande Valley. For her performance this season, Martinez has been named The Monitor’s 2021 All-Area Volleyball Newcomer of the Year.
Martinez finished the season with 487 kills. 3.8 kills per set, as the Rattlers claimed a 30-14 overall record and finished 7-7 in a brutal District 31-5A where the top five teams, including the Rattlers, were all ranked in the Texas Girls Coaches Association Top 25 Poll during the season. Her 37.3% kill percentage also led the team.
Her 487 kills were a school record.
Junior America Hernandez finished second on the team with 256 kills, while fellow freshman Kassandra De La Garza added 237 kills. Those three gave defenses fits through the season, and they’ll all be back next year.
A freshman maybe by age, but her performance on the court was beyond her years — her composure and ability to come up big at critical moments was senior-like and leader-esque.
During a tournament in Corpus Christi, Sharyland head coach Raul Castillo lost his starting setter and inserted Martinez as a setter. The first thing, he noticed, however, was how much her serve receive and passing skills were missed. The second thing was that here was a freshman with very little setting experience, yet she was still trying to run plays and not “just do the easy thing and put up high balls for the hitters.”
“I knew right then that she was incredibly special,” Castillo said. “I had never seen her play in person, just mainly on videos but when she came this summer for strength and conditioning I noticed how tall she was and her physicality. She quickly surpassed what I was expecting.”
Martinez said she was nervous early on, starting as a freshman in a district as strong as 31-5A and with a preseason tournament schedule in which the Rattlers would face multiple state-ranked teams.
“I started feeling comfortable during summer leagues and we starting clicking along,” the 5-foot-10 outside hitter/emergency setter said. “We connected well, trusted each other and that gave me confidence.”
With only one senior on the team last season, the Rattlers are expected to once again battle for a playoff position and should be considered among the top teams to compete for the district title. Martinez will be in the mix, using her advanced and well-rounded game to lead a strong Rattlers arsenal.
“She just played big for us. Sometimes you have great freshmen but they don’t play at the level she played at. She played like a junior or a senior. When they help you carry the team, they make a big impact. She stepped up a lot and would do whatever was needed. You could tell at times she was a freshman early on but as she began meshing and gaining confidence. That was the big thing: she just played at another level.”
And, like that one coach said, she still has three years for other teams to have to deal with her.