Athens High volleyball player achieves 1,000 kills

TROY — Skyye Frailey, a senior at Athens High, recently reached 1,000 kills in her career as an outside hitter on the school’s volleyball team.

According to the South Dakota High School Activities Association, a kill is “an attack by a player that is not returnable by the receiving player on the opposing team and leads directly to a point or loss of rally.”

Frailey was able to achieve the goal of 1,000 kills last month. She feels working on her efficiency and communication with teammates helped her reach the milestone.

“It’s been a goal I’ve been trying to reach since I was a freshman here at Athens, and I’m just very proud and accomplished that I did fulfill that now,” Frailey said.

Frailey has been playing volleyball since third grade.

“I started playing because of my dad,” Frailey said. “He recommended it to me, and he also played in high school, so I just started when I was little in gym class.”

Now she can be found playing volleyball throughout most of the year.

“In high school, we play a lot of teams near our region and in our league, and then in the winter I play club volleyball, as well, where we play teams from out of state and travel a lot,” Frailey said. 

She intends to continue playing volleyball in college, specifically through a scholarship with Wayne State University.

Kennedy Paulina, head coach for the Athens High volleyball team, was very excited for Frailey to reach her goal of 1,000 kills. Paulina said reaching the milestone is feasible in high school because players can work toward it for four years.

“She didn’t know (about the achievement) — we kept it a secret,” Paulina said. “When she hit it, when she had 1,000 kills, we told her right after the point, and she was really excited. It was cool to have it a secret on a home game, as well.”

Paulina has coached club volleyball for seven years, but this is her first year coaching at Athens High. Her goal this season has been to make sure there is one team across all three levels, and that they’re giving it their all.

“We ask a lot of them, and they continue to put forth effort,” Paulina said.

For more information, visit athens.troy.k12.mi.us.