Freshman Sophia Rubio heard the news at noon Aug. 29. The Bethel University Royals volleyball team played the University of Northwestern Eagles that night, and the Royals were officially without their starting setter, junior Ellie Van Namen, who fractured her foot.
Volleyball players and coaches often refer to the setter as the quarterback of the team. Setters, ideally, touch the ball at least once every rally. It’s on them to make up for poor passes; it’s typically seen as their fault for a bad swing. There’s a lot of pressure to be a setter. And all this pressure fell to the freshman, Rubio, in the team’s first game of the season.
Head coach Gretchen Hunt prefers to keep all positions competitive in practice, and she had already planned to utilize both Van Namen and Rubio as regular setters, with Van Namen being the primary.
“[Rubio] has such a big skill set, and she’s such a gifted setter,” Van Namen said. “I think that definitely getting her some experience this year was a goal of Gretchen’s.”
But when the news of Van Namen’s foot fracture went from bad – missing four weeks of the season – to worse – sitting out the whole season and redshirting for another year of eligibility – running the offense fell to Rubio.
“One of the things I think I’ve learned over the years is best laid plans typically go astray,” Hunt said. “So you hold loosely to plans like that.”
Either way, it was up to Rubio, a freshman – white sleeves rolled, each arm equipped with black elbow pads and fingers taped – to lead the offense in the team’s first regular season game of 2025 against a nationally recognized Eagles’ team.
“What I felt badly about is that I hadn’t put her in the best position to be prepared,” Bethel head coach Gretchen Hunt said. “I never want to do something in a match we haven’t practiced.”
Prepared or not, Rubio responded to her new role with a 33-assist performance in the Royals’ three-set loss. After the game, Northwestern coaches remarked to Hunt that Rubio was more composed than they expected.
Regardless of the result of each rally, Rubio always greets her teammates in the huddle of six with smiles and affirmative nods. I got you, they say to her hitters.
She’s retained that composure throughout the season. Bethel has played 71 sets this season, and Rubio has played in every single one. As the only setter to see action this season, she hasn’t even sat on the bench yet.
And Rubio is succeeding in her crucial role. Her 10.34 assists per set rank first in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) and (technically) 11th in all of Division III. She frequently sets to junior middle blocker Peyton Howie, helping her achieve a .369 hitting percentage – second in the MIAC.
“I love being a setter, because I get to do my best to give them the best ball that I can,” Rubio said. “And then hope that I do my job well enough so that they can have success.”
Before each serve, Rubio “connects” with each of her hitters. She makes eye contact, pulls at her jersey, number 28, to hide her hands and flashes a signal.
A pinky and a thumb: “Slide.” The middle sprints around the setter to swing from the outside.
Four fingers curved out with the thumb curved parallel under: “C.” The hitter is aiming for the gap in the block.
Thumb up: “Go.” A fast set to the outside.
Each hitter receives a different signal, depending on what Rubio knows about their strengths and what she sees in the defense. But it’s still a split-second, in-the-moment decision of where the ball will go. Sometimes Rubio doesn’t know what she’ll do until the ball is in her hands.
Setters have to trust their hitters to be in the right place when they put the ball up. Hitters have to trust setters to get the ball to where they want it. While Van Namen had the advantage of building the “setter-hitter” connection in her first two years at Bethel, Rubio was forced to expedite those connections, all while learning her class schedule and college routine.
But Rubio embraced the challenge. At one point, while fellow freshman Jada Henrikson recovered from a concussion, Rubio was the only healthy setter on the team. Since Hunt runs several drills at once in practice, as well as intrasquad scrimmages, Rubio works double to give all of her teammates the best looks possible.
“It’s a very important thing for me to get into the hitter’s brain,” Rubio said. “Then I can predict what they’re thinking in the situation, what they need in the situation.”
But both Hunt and Van Namen praise Rubio for the connections she’s building. It allows her to avoid giving sets away. She makes her decisions based on the opposing middle blockers. It’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” between setters and hitters on the court – each trying to read the other – and Rubio refuses to break. With no hints to read, blockers are forced to split up, leaving defensive gaps and setting up Rubio’s hitters for easy kills.
“Her decision-making as a setter has improved a ton,” Van Namen said. “Something that she’s naturally really good at is spreading the offense out.”
And when she makes the correct decision, as she seemingly does 10.34 times per set, including a career-high 50-assist game versus the College of Saint Scholastica, it’s celebration time.
“I just love getting in my hitter’s face and celebrating with them,” Rubio said.
With these joys come heavy responsibilities. But Rubio finds joy in this pressure.
“Pressure is a privilege,” Rubio said. “You have gotten to this point and have this pressure, because you have worked every single day for it, your team has worked every single day for it, and you are given this opportunity to perform.”
Citing a growth mindset, Rubio is especially bought into one of Bethel volleyball’s core values: bringing 100% of your gifts each day.
And if everyone else on the team does the same…
“We have no limitations,” Rubio said. [We] keep growing, keep showing up, hard work, and luckily, this team supports that and has that value as well.”
Rubio’s most recent performance, 36 sets in a three-set win over St. Catherine University Friday evening, helped the Royals clinch a home MIAC playoff game as the fourth seed. Her support of the team’s values will drive her to, ideally, lead the team through the postseason.
The Royals play St. Catherine University again in the MIAC quarterfinals at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Additional reporting by Leo Justesen
