The RoundHouse | 9/13/2018 5:38:00 PM

Megan Taflinger went to UCLA's volleyball camp as a small-college recruit with a big swing and lofty academic goals in the summer before her senior year in high school.
 
A few days later, that made her a perfect recruit for Wichita State, mostly thanks to California volleyball connections that stretch all the way to Koch Arena. 
 
"It's actually kind of a long story . . . ," Taflinger said.
 
Let's sum it up. UCLA assistant coach Tony Ker watched Taflinger play in the camp. The Bruins were full with outside hitters. Ker told her he knew a place that fit – Wichita State. Ker is close friends with Wichita State coach Chris Lamb and assistant Sean Carter and recognized a match.
 
"He goes 'I have the people who would want you,'" Taflinger said. "That's how I met Sean."
 
Within that circle of trusted coaching friends, it is common to pass on recruiting leads. Ker told Carter that Taflinger possessed hitting skills the Shockers could use. Other parts of her game needed polish.
 
"That's what started it all – then we went and saw her," said Carter, who grew up playing sports with the Ker family in Valencia, Calif. "We find a lot of kids that way. Everybody knows what everybody needs."
 
Taflinger, a redshirt freshman from Leona Valley, Calif., fills a big need for Wichita State (4-4) this season. She leads the Shockers with an average of 2.83 points a set and her total of 79 kills and average of 2.47 kills a set is tied with Tabitha Brown for the team lead. She is providing critical points at outside hitter for a team retooling its offense and often struggling to score.
 
"We're finding out Megan is putting up real numbers and doing it against some of the better teams in the country," Lamb said. "Megan makes high contact, she's able to hit deep, if she has to, to score, but she can also put the ball down."
 
Taflinger redshirted in 2017 to recover from surgery to remove the plica band in her right knee. She recovered quickly enough that Lamb said he considered playing her late in the season before opting to keep her redshirted. Coaches debated between playing her on the right or left before deciding that the left suited her skills best.
 
Her blocking skills needed to improve – Taflinger said she rarely needed to block in high school - and Lamb likes her progress with her hand positioning, posture and reactions. He sees her as six-rotation possibility as she improves her digging.
 
"I hope to bring a positive happiness to the court when I go in," she said. "I firmly believe that if all of us are doing well and are excited and happy together, we'll play and work hard for each other."
 
Taflinger opened the season with 12 kills in a win over James Madison, added 15 against VCU, 16 against Iowa State with a season-high .333 attack percentage and 12 against then-No. 14 Creighton. The Shockers are using three setters and Lamb likes Taflinger's ability to work with all three.
 
"Megan's able to wait a long time and finish fast, she's able to wait to see the ball and go get it, where I think other girls on the team are having timing issues," Lamb said.
 
Taflinger used the 2017 practices to pay close attention to former Shockers Abbie Lehman, Emily Hiebert and Mikaela Raudsepp, all seniors.
 
"I learned Division I volleyball is a lot faster than I was expecting it to be," Taflinger said. "On TV, it doesn't look that fast. In person, it does look fast, but you don't know how fast until you play it."
 
Lehman, Hiebert and Raudsepp played the game at the right tempo because of their experience. 
 
"Trying to play defense against them, that was probably the biggest thing, just watching them play as seniors," Taflinger said. "I was like 'Wow, that's what I hope to be like.'"
 
Tony Ker saw the volleyball talents that made Taflinger a fit at Wichita State. Taflinger needed to know much more about Wichita State. The academics needed to work. She is a mechanical and biomedical engineering major.
 
She visited Wichita State in the fall of 2016 and said her meetings with faculty took longer than her time with the volleyball team. She liked Wichita State's size and no other school offered the combination of top volleyball and her academic goals.
 
"I was like 'Wow, somebody wanted me,'" Taflinger said. "I felt that when I would go into classes, I wasn't just a number. I was somebody that they knew my name or they knew that I played volleyball. I belonged here." 
 
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.