Three players over 400

Crawford is a small school in Texas and it has played 58 sets this fall, which puts Minnix at 8.09 a set and at the top of the national board. Behind her, Makayla Escobedo at Madison in San Antonio has 465 in 63, and Karsyn Evans at Aledo has 434 in 54, which is the best rate of the three at 8.04.

Three players over 400 digs before the end of August, and none of them plays for a school anybody outside Texas has heard of.

Liberos and defensive specialists get written about less than anybody else in this sport, which has never made sense to us given how much of a college recruiting budget goes to exactly that position. So here is the national dig board, and then the part of the back row that no national board tracks at all.

The national dig board

Rank	Athlete	Pos	Class	High school	State	Digs	Sets	Per set	VBR
1	Leyton Minnix	L/DS	Jr.	Crawford	TX	469	58	8.09	—
2	Makayla Escobedo	DS/L	Jr.	Madison, San Antonio	TX	465	63	7.38	—
3	Karsyn Evans	L	Sr.	Aledo	TX	434	54	8.04	—
4	Ashley Ruschill	L	So.	McKinney Boyd, McKinney	TX	390	44	8.86	—
5	Gianna Dominguez	L	Jr.	Chapin, El Paso	TX	375	49	7.65	—
6	Emily Redwine	L	Sr.	Denton	TX	360	63	5.71	3-star
7	Cayleigh Monson	—	Sr.	Pieper, San Antonio	TX	358	56	6.39	—
8	Xyanna Stephens	L/DS	Sr.	Lake Travis, Austin	TX	357	64	5.58	—
9	Addison Mayo	L	Sr.	Flour Bluff, Corpus Christi	TX	344	58	5.93	—
10	Kyleigh Shaw	S	Jr.	Madison, San Antonio	TX	342	63	5.43	—
11	Tiara Cooks	DS	Sr.	McCallum, Austin	TX	337	62	5.44	—
12	Camryn Bruder	L	Sr.	Burleson	TX	327	51	6.41	—
13	Louisa Ertischek	L/DS	So.	Lake Creek, Montgomery	TX	323	78	4.14	—
14	Madison Moody	L	Sr.	Smithson Valley, Spring Branch	TX	314	53	5.92	—
15	Maggie Wheeler	OH	Jr.	Lake Travis, Austin	TX	312	64	4.88	—
16	Piper Adair	OH	Jr.	McCallum, Austin	TX	303	62	4.89	—
17	Preslie Shiflett	DS/L	Sr.	Ryan, Denton	TX	299	54	5.54	—
18	Mackenzi White	DS/L	Sr.	Centennial, Burleson	TX	299	57	5.25	—
19	Mackenzie Ressler	OH/L	Sr.	West Rusk, New London	TX	298	47	6.34	—
20	Piper Marquart	L	Sr.	Ridge Point, Missouri City	TX	298	57	5.23	—
21	Ashley Shreves	—	Fr.	Springtown	TX	297	73	4.07	—
22	Milan Benavides	L	Sr.	Glenn, Leander	TX	289	55	5.25	—
23	Alina Pinter	DS/L	Fr.	Duncanville	TX	286	55	5.20	—
24	Paisley Hearn	DS	Jr.	Tarkington, Cleveland	TX	285	47	6.06	—
25	Ariana Juanes	L	Sr.	Franklin, El Paso	TX	284	45	6.31	—

What the board is really telling you

Every name on that board is from Texas, which tells you which state has played 50 or more sets by the end of August rather than where the country's best defenders live. For the states whose seasons are a week old, see today's five-state piece.

Ashley Ruschill at McKinney Boyd has the best rate on the page at 8.86 and has played fourteen fewer sets than Minnix. Madison in San Antonio has two of the top ten, Escobedo at second and Kyleigh Shaw at 10th, both in 63 sets. Lake Travis has Xyanna Stephens at eighth and Maggie Wheeler at 15th. McCallum has Tiara Cooks at 11th and Piper Adair at 16th.

Receptions, which nobody ranks

A dig is a ball that came at you hard. A reception is a serve you had to turn into an attackable ball, and it is the half of back-row work that never makes a leaderboard. Nobody publishes a national board for it, so what follows is not a ranking: it is the largest reception totals we came across while reading about twenty school pages this week.

London Laubach, Cascia Hall (Tulsa, OK). 297 receptions, plus 160 kills and 25 aces, as a freshman. Cascia Hall is 13-3.

Brielle Boothe, Boerne-Champion (Boerne, TX). 207 receptions, plus 218 digs at 4.8 a set and 29 aces, for a team that is 15-3.

Alana Williams, Westlake (Atlanta, GA). 171 receptions, plus 66 digs alongside them.

Kendal White, Iowa Colony (Rosharon, TX). 161 receptions, plus 196 digs, and she leads her team in both.

Charlie Marsico, Lutheran South Academy (Houston, TX). 159 receptions, plus 176 digs at 4.1 a set.

Annie Cook, Wasatch (Heber City, UT). 154 receptions, plus 83 digs at 3.5 a set.

Kennedy Welsh, Cascia Hall (Tulsa, OK). 151 receptions, plus 178 digs at 3.9 a set, on the same roster as Laubach.

Sophie Loe, Briarcrest Christian (Eads, TN). 146 receptions, plus 83 digs at 3.6 a set and 14 aces.

Brooke Williams, Carrboro (Carrboro, NC). 142 receptions, plus 80 digs at 2.3 a set, leading Carrboro in both, on a team that is 8-2.

Abby Dimov, Harvest Community (Jacksonville, FL). 133 receptions, plus 73 digs at 4.1 a set.

Emma Rupeika, Northview (Johns Creek, GA). 125 receptions, plus 55 digs and seven aces for a team that is 1-14.

Emme Phillips, Regis Jesuit (Aurora, CO). 62 receptions, plus 33 digs at 3.3 a set, on a team that is 3-0.

Kennedy Shockley at Fishers in Indiana belongs in this section for a different reason. She has 111 digs at 5.8 a set, the highest per-set dig figure of anybody named here, on a team that has played six matches. Her teammate Ella Dragoo has 47 receptions and leads Fishers in aces with seven.

On the cusp

Brielle Boothe (Boerne-Champion TX), London Laubach (Cascia Hall OK), Leyton Minnix (Crawford TX), Mackenzie Ressler (West Rusk TX), Ashley Ruschill (McKinney Boyd TX).

Two off the national board with the best rates on it, and three carrying a reception load on top of the digs. Check back on all five in October.

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*Stats as of Aug. 28, 2026.