St. Joe Star Missouri Gatorade Player of the Year

One year from now, Alyssa Jensen, junior at St. Joseph’s Academy, will graduate a semester early from high school. She has earned enough credits to begin college by the time she is 17 years old.

This volleyball star from Fenton is eager to move on. She has given a verbal commitment to the University of California, Berkeley to play for the Golden Bears. She will study mass communications with plans of becoming a sportswriter some day.

Jensen played on the Angels team that won 55 matches in two years and a state championship a year ago. She was recently named the Gatorade Missouri Player of the Year. St. Joe has not had a player earn that honor since Kristen Folkl in the mid 1980s.

“She’s one of the very best we’ve ever had and pleased to have her in our program. She had to learn how to master playing the perimeter and she did that. She’s a very good team player and a very hard worker,” her coach Karen Davis said.

Jensen, who stands at 5 feet 11 inches, devotes most of her free time to the game of volleyball. She plays all summer for the traveling team the St. Louis High Performance. University of California, Berkeley coaches spotted at one of those tournaments.

Jensen, who maintains a B+ classroom average, had an outstanding statistical year. The Angeles were 24-8-0, losing in the playoffs to Kirkwood.

She had 342 serves (a 89 percent success rate), scored 33 aces and 89 points, and 49 kills and 37 blocks during the high school season.

“We brought her up from the freshman team midway through that season. “I’m not surprised at all she won this award,” Davis said.

Jensen loves the sport. She coaches a team of 11-year-olds in her brief free moments.

“I was surprised when I heard I was nominated for this award,” Jensen said.

She credits her teammates for much of her success, rattling off the names of teammates this year with their college choices: Elise Ames, (University of Southern Mississippi), Carly Ochs (University of North Carolina-Charlotte); Molly Keeven and Anna Reichert.

Jensen said it was always in her plans to attend St. Joe.

“From my very first visit, I always knew it was the place to be,” she said.

Now she will be getting a plaque and a banner to hang in the gym to recognize the Gatorade award.

“That will be my favorite Christmas present,” she said.