By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information

SEATTLE – Caught in the middle.
 
That's kinda how Allison Wilks was feeling on a 2021 winter afternoon.
 
Then a freshman in just her second quarter at Seattle Pacific, Wilks and the rest of the Falcons already had gone through a frustrating fall of 2020 when their volleyball season was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
 
 

Upon returning to campus from the holidays, they at least were allowed to have full practices again, preparing for a winter / spring schedule of non-conference matches against nearby opponents.
 
Wilks had been practicing as an outside hitter. But because of an injury to one of her teammates, she was asked to take a few steps across the net to her right and play in the middle.
 
She knew she could play the spot, having done both middle and outside in high school. But she also was mindful of the fact that, well … she was a freshman, and there were players ahead of her on the roster.
 
"I remember I called my mom and said, 'Mom, there are other people at this position.' I wasn't sure how they were going to respond."
 
That day when Wilks walked into Brougham Pavilion, the teams split into groups. As they did, she saw fellow freshman – and now fellow middle blocker – Hannah Hair coming her way.
 
"Hannah walked over, arms open, and was saying, 'Hey, welcome to the middle! This is going to be so great.' I remember her totally making me feel like, 'This is going to be OK. There's at least one person who is going to help me out in this transition.'
 
"That totally set the tone, and that's definitely how it has always gone."
 
HOW IT HAS ALWAYS GONE … AND STILL IS
The spontaneous interaction between Wilks and Hair "totally set the tone," all right. On that particular winter day, they hadn't even played a match together yet.
 
Now, as they head into Saturday's Senior Day contest against Montana State Billings when they'll don their Seattle Pacific uniforms for the final time, they have combined to play 217 matches (111 for Hair, 106 for Wilks) and 863 sets (449 for Hair, 414 for Wilks)
 
In so doing, they have become two of the best ever to man the middle, not only at SPU, but within the entire Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
 
Hair is a two-time All-American and last year had the best blocks-per-set average in the entirety of NCAA Division II.
 
Wilks is the school record holder for best single-season hitting percentage, checking in at .404 last year. That made her the first and only Falcon in the program's 39 years to finish the fall north of .400.
 
Together, they have seven postseason GNAC awards, five Preseason All-GNAC selections, eight GNAC All-Academic and four CoSIDA Academic All-District honors – and even all of that isn't a complete list.
 
But the key word here is "together."
 
Just ask either one of them.
 
"I think I've improved my hitting throughout college, and I attribute so much of that to having to hit against her every single day," Wilks said of facing Hair across the net during practice. "I have to hit around the biggest block in Division II every … single … day.  I would not be near as successful as I've ever been if I didn't get to play against her every day."
 
Hair was more than eager to offer her own perspective on that practice dynamic.
 
"I really struggled my freshman and sophomore year. I'm an effective pin blocker and I can make my moves and get a block assist," she said. "But the middle was nearly impossible for me – it was a different read, and it felt so different.
 
"Ali is so effective offensively – also defensively, but offensively in the middle. Playing in practice against Ali, it elevated my ability to see where a middle was going to attack, read their footwork, and line up properly. That has seriously improved my ability to block."
 
FROM BUMPING TO BONDING
Before they arrived at Seattle Pacific late in the summer of 2020, Hair and Wilks – as best they could recall – had crossed paths only minimally. Wilks is from Bothell, a bit northeast of Seattle. Hair hails from Walla Walla in the four o'clock corner of Washington. Their high school teams (North Creek for Wilks, Walla Walla for Hair) had never met. But their club teams had been in the same tournament.
 
They unexpectedly wound up sharing their recruiting visit to Seattle Pacific.
 

"I was supposed to be here two days before, but Walla Walla got a snowstorm and I couldn't fly out," Hair said. "I had to fly out a couple days later, and Abbie (Wright, SPU's head coach at the time) said, 'There's going to be another middle blocker on your visit.' We kind of bumped into each other and shared a visit to the nursing building." (Wilks is a nursing major; Hair was considering that before enrolling in exercise science.)
 
"Then I was supposed to get into the coach's car to drive somewhere – and I'm just inches from sitting on Ali's mom's lap," she added with a laugh. "That was a crazy first impression – and look at us now."
 
Because of all the pandemic limitations on gatherings that were still in place, practices during that fall of 2020 were limited to five players at a time.
 
As the pandemic barriers gradually came down, so did barriers between teammates who still hadn't had much of a chance to get to know each other.

That was particularly true for Hair and Wilks. Both are intelligent and well-spoken (Wilks has a 3.92 grade-point average; Hair has a 3.91). Hair is highly outgoing; Wilks is a bit more reserved.
 
"We started going to church together. I had a favorite church in Bothell, and Hannah had a car," Wilks recalled. I said, 'Hannah will probably want to go to church with me, and she'll like this church.' I begged her to take me to church, and we ended up going quite a few times."
 
Eventually during the late winter and early spring of 2021, the Falcons were able to get back into competition. There were no standings, no tournaments, no postseason – just the chance to play again.
 
Their first match was a Saturday afternoon doubleheader at Northwest University in nearby Kirkland.
 
"I remember the van ride with masks on, and I'm sitting three feet from the person next to me," Hair said. "It was crazy – we were doing whatever we could to go play. … That floor (in the NU gym), you jumped a little funny on it, it hurt the knees a little more. But it was fun to get to compete, get out of our own gym, and see somewhere else."
 
Looking back, Wilks said that freshman year offered a coming-together kind of experience that might not have happened under more normal circumstances.
 
"It makes me really grateful for freshman and sophomore year when we were able to bond as a team and as a class," she said. "The years that followed led us here to that space where we were just so excited to be here every day.
 
"That bonded us as a group and made us who we are."
 
MAKING A CHANGE
By the fall of '21, things were much closer to normal. Regular competition resumed, and SPU put together an early-season string of nine wins in 11 matches, including six straight. They were in the conversation for a trip to the NCAAs, but just missed out on an at-large berth.
 
 

Then in late February 2022, coach Abbie Wright, who had recruited Hair and Wilks to SPU in 2020,  accepted an associate head coach job at Division 1 Fresno State. In April, Jason Rhine arrived from Colorado Christian to take charge. After the usual getting-to-know-you transition period, the Falcons began buying into Rhine's program.
 
"It rocked the boat a little bit and it was an interesting time," Hair said of the coaching change. "But I couldn't be more grateful for Jason coming in. It's different (coaching) styles, but finishing out my career under Jason was just one of the biggest blessings."
 
Added Wilks, "He was just what we needed at that time. He has a little bit more of a lenient approach, but in a good way that just allowed a team that was so self-motivated – we were high achievers – to just do that, to be self-motivated. We really wanted to be successful and that's why we wanted to work hard. We wanted to do it, and do it together."
 
Rhine didn't know much about either Hair or Wilks before he got to SPU, but quickly began liking what he was seeing.
 
"They're both really into the game of volleyball, and they were both interested in what kind of blocking system we were going to run," he said. "From the beginning when Lindsey (Calvin, SPU's former assistant coach) and I were talking to them about what some of our thoughts and plans were, you could tell they were locked in and thinking about it and wanting to work with us and make the best of it."
 
AT LONG LAST, A TITLE AND AN NCAA TRIP
Once again in 2022, the Falcons were in the NCAA conversation as the season wound down, but again just missed out on making the tournament.
 
Then came 2023. Seattle Pacific dropped two of its first three matches, then went on an 11-match winning streak. That included the first six on the GNAC schedule. On the opening weekend of conference play, the Falcons were the only team to go 2-0. That put them alone atop of the standings, and they stayed there – all by themselves – through the entire schedule.
 
SPU clinched the conference crown at home on Nov. 16 with a 3-1 victory against Saint Martin's. Hair and Wilks combined for 13 kills on .333 hitting, plus nine blocks.
 
 

But don't ask either of them what their stats were that night, Heck, don't even ask who the opponent was. After Hair found the floor with a kill on match point, none of those other things mattered.
 
"I don't remember a single point from that match – I can't even tell you who we were playing," Wilks said. "I didn't even know we were playing for the championship that day – but I knew the scouting report. What I remember is us winning, bringing out the hats, hugging my mom, and dancing with my best friends in the locker room for 30 minutes and dumping water on Jason."
 
Added Hair, "That locker room was so much excitement. It was such a great feeling to do it after so many years as an SPU volleyball player."
 
The Falcons got bumped out of the NCAA Tournament in the first round by eventual national champion Cal State Los Angeles. But even with that, they had reached the postseason for the first time since 2011.
 
What's more, Hair, Wilks, and all of their classmates who had been granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA because of the 2020 pandemic shutdown, were all planning to come back in 2024.
 
"Once we knew we were going to have a fifth year, heck yeah, I want to play as much volleyball as I can," Hair said. "I structured my academics so it would spread across five years. As terrible as (the pandemic) was, it was a gift to play another year of volleyball."
 
Wilks knew that she would have one final quarter in her nursing program, a practicum that involves a lot of time in clinic settings.
 
"I knew it was going to be a busy one if I decided to (play)," she said. "But it also amounted to who was going to be doing it with me. If I was going to do it, I wanted it to be with the majority of my class if it couldn't be all of my class. Thankfully, it ended up that we were all ready to do it. So I was in."
 
TOUGH START, BUT BRIGHT SPOTS ABOUND
The 2024 campaign hasn't gone quite the way everyone had hoped it would. The Falcons are, however, finishing on a strong note, having won seven of their last 10 after a 2-and-13 start. Their first eight matches included six against opponents who played in the 2023 NCAA Tournament.
 
Later in the schedule, it also included a come-from-behind 3-2 victory at Western Washington – SPU's first regular-season triumph against the Vikings since 2013. It included homecourt wins against Central Washington and Simon Fraser, one of which is eventually going to win the GNAC title and both of which are likely going to the NCAAs.

 

Other bright spots have come poking through, too. Last Thursday at Saint Martin's was one of them when Hair's block assist early in the first set meant that she and Wilks now had 1,000 blocks between them in their careers. (They come into Saturday with 1,012.)
 
Then there was Nov. 2 in Fairbanks. Midway through the fifth set of an epic back-and-forth match, Hair got a block assist in combination with sophomore Coco Barnett. That was the 598th block of her career, a new GNAC record. Everything stopped momentarily while she was presented with a match ball.
 
 

As she typically does, Hair dished credit to everyone else.
 
"I think it speaks a ton to our team in general. We have trained to have a really high-level defense," she said that night. "Our current coaches and our coaches in the past like (former SPU assistant) Lindsey Calvin have helped me a ton in the way I block. It speaks to their ability to train us hard in the gym and I'm very grateful for that."
 
In fact, Wilks might have been even more excited about Hair's new record..
 
 "You won't find anyone who works harder than Hannah Hair or anyone who is willing to do more than she does," Wilks said. "I want her success as much as I want my own. And it's fun that the middle gets to have two of us – it's not like the libero where one person gets (the job). We both play the rotations; we both get to watch each other be successful."
 
 

Fifth-year opposite Erin Smith, who has shared many blocks with Hair and Wilks over the years, felt the same way on that night in Fairbanks.
 
"I was just so proud of her. She works so hard and has gone through a lot the last couple year and she's one of the most resilient people I've every met," Smith said. "It's such a privilege to be able to look back on my college career and know that I played with some of the best middles and best blockers in our conference. There's such a confidence that they exude on the court."
 
THE LAST ONE
So here they are: 217 matches, 863 sets, 1,572 kills 1,012 blocks, and 2,271.5 points together since that February 2021 facemasked doubleheader in the low-ceilinged Northwest University gym.
 
One more match to go.
 
"They've set a very high standard for what it's possible to accomplish on the floor, but they're also great leaders in their position," Rhine said. "They've left a great legacy of what it is to work hard and play at a high level, but also care about your teammates and want the best for the program.
 
Does it really feel like it's the fifth autumn that they've been here?
 
"One day, it will feel like it's been dragging on. The next day, I'll be like, 'Man – where did the time go?'" Hair said. "I feel like it's going to be surreal when it's over."
 
It won't entirely be over for Hair and Wilks, however. Along with being besties, they've also been roomies for the past few years and plan to continue doing that post-SPU.
 
As for volleyball? Well, there just might be a Coach Allison someday.
 
"I can see myself coaching in the future," she said. "Probably just club. But getting involved with young athletes that way could be super-fun."
 
For a while, Hair pondered the possibility of playing professionally and continuing her career. But, at least for now, she has stepped back from that.
 
"One thing is definitely physical fitness. My knees, shoulders, ankles, back, and just about every joint in between are a little beat up and a little bit full of inflammation," she said, adding with a laugh, "My stomach will thank me when I don't have to take four Advil a day."
 
That's just part of it. Sure, if she really wanted to, Hair could find the time to do it. She could find a place to play. She could find a reason to keep playing.

When … where … even why … Hair could fill in all of those blanks.
 
For her, however, it ultimately comes down to who.
 
"Our memories from volleyball are with people," Hair said. "We've had good games, amazing performances from everyone on the team – those are great things to celebrate. I wasn't ready to go play volleyball with anybody else. My five years here with my best friends – it just wouldn't be the same anywhere else."
 
Especially if Wilks wasn't sharing the court with her.
 
"We have this incredibly rare and blessed friendship where we play the same position, we've had a lot of classes together, we've done everything together. It's so rare to find a friend who is just truly supportive and truly loving at the same time," Hair said.
 
It seems like such a long time now from that spontaneous moment on the Brougham Pavilion gym floor. The day when one Seattle Pacific freshman, a bit nervous about how she would fit in at a different position, was literally greeted with open arms by another Seattle Pacific freshman playing the same position.
 
For Allison Wilks and Hannah Hair, that totally set the tone ... and that's definitely how it has always gone.
 
And it still is.


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