Saint Martin’s Kristyn Ross Has the Grades To Go Along with the Game in Volleyball

By Gail Wood

As a four-year starter who was named her conference’s freshman of the year, Saint Martin University’s Kristyn Ross has always been a go-to-player.

Need a game-winning spike? Go to Ross. Need help with your homework? Go to Ross.

Whether on the court or in the classroom, Ross has had the answer.

“She’s a battler,” said Kara Peterson, SMU’s head volleyball coach. “She’s always been someone we can rely on.”

Even as a freshman, Ross was already one of SMU’s top players. She averaged 3.83 kills per set, ranking her 41st nationally. She is SMU’s first conference freshman of the year winner in volleyball in school history. She was fourth in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference that year in kills with 340.

After leading her team in kills every season since her freshman season, Ross holds the school’s all-time record with 1,046 kill shots with just a few matches remaining. Her 28 kills at Montana State Billings earlier this season set a school record for one match, earning her SMU’s athlete of the week honors.

With a 3.7 GPA and with a knack for the spike at the net, Ross is a brainiac who is also an athlete. At Capital High School, Ross was a two-time 3A Narrows League MVP. With her knack for delivering in the clutch, Ross had the reputation in high school for being the hardest hitter in the area, if not the state.

Back in high school, Ross led the Cougars in kills, digs and aces, helping Capital win their fifth straight league title her senior year. She’s the all-time leader in kills at Capital, too. Her high school coach, Natalie Zukowski, called Ross a “once-in-a-lifetime player.”

“I love volleyball,” Ross said. “It’s been a big part of my life.”

She began playing volleyball in the fourth grade at the South Sound YMCA. At 5’10”, Ross was also an outstanding basketball player in high school. She loves the team aspect of volleyball. Naturally, the mental challenge of the sport appeals to Ross, who is the true definition of a student-athlete.

“You have to think about it a lot. It’s really strategic,” Ross said about volleyball. “It’s a lot more complicated than people think it is. People think all you have to do is get up and spike the ball. There’s so much more to it.”

There’s the serving, which is individual.

“That’s all on you,” Ross said “But you can’t touch the ball three times. In basketball you can dribble the ball down the court and shoot it. In volleyball, you can’t touch it twice in a row. So you have to rely on your team a lot.”

All along, from the days she a fourth grader playing volleyball and basketball, she’s also had two huge fans – her parents, Kim and John Ross. Even after moving to the Las Vegas area last June, Kim and John have been in the stands at SMU’s home matches, cheering for their daughter.

“She likes hanging out with her family,” Peterson said. “I think her family is a big source of protection and inspiration.”

With just a few matches left in her college career, Ross knows her days of leaping and slamming the ball to the floor to end another rally are nearing an end.

“I try not to think about it,” Ross said. “A lot of people ask me how I feel about this being my senior year. Well, I just don’t want to think about it. It makes me sad thinking about it. Volleyball has been my whole life. It’s weird to think not having volleyball around.”

Actually, volleyball hasn’t been Ross’ “whole” life. There’s been chemistry. Peterson chuckled as she told a story of Ross meeting a high school recruit last spring that was visiting on campus. Ross came to the school’s lunchroom to meet the recruit all excited, wearing a T-shirt she had just gotten from her chemistry class.

“She comes flying in and she’s wearing this T-shirt,” Peterson said, laughing at the memory. “She said, ‘Look at what I got in bio club.’ It was a T-shirt with DNA all over it. And she said, ‘Look, isn’t this cool.’”

That’s Ross being Ross. With ambitions to be a medical doctor, Ross is hardly a dumb jock, going to college just to play sports. She’s a student first, athlete second. She’s the president of her school’s biology club.

“She loves chemistry,” Peterson said. “She’s very academic.”

A year ago as a junior, Ross, wanting to graduate early, loaded up her class load with some challenging, upper-level chemistry and physics classes. Worried she was going to get a B in one of her classes, the work load weighed heavy.

“That sent her into a tailspin,” Peterson said. “She took all very hard classes during the volleyball season. It was a challenge. But she handled it very well.”

But that, Peterson will tell you, is just how Ross does things – to the best of her abilities.