Volleyball Metro Player of the Year: Hopkins' Samantha Seliger Swenson learned from her mom, walls

In terms of her development as one of the nation's best high school setters, Hopkins senior Samantha Seliger Swenson understandably lists her mother, Vicki, who is also Hopkins' volleyball coach, as the most influential force in her career.

Second would be a wall.

Specifically, the walls at Hopkins' Lindbergh Athletic Center, where the volleyball team plays and where a young Seliger Swenson would spend countless hours by herself while her mom was coaching the Royals.

"I've always said the Lindbergh walls taught me how to play volleyball because I had no one to play with," she said. "I would pass against the wall for two hours or set against the wall for two hours."

A life spent in kneepads and spandex shorts has paid off handsomely for Seliger Swenson, who is the Star Tribune's 2014 Volleyball Metro Player of the Year.

A slender 6-footer with a long blonde ponytail half her height, Seliger Swenson has skills as a setter that are nationally recognized.

According to PrepVolleyball.com, she has been ranked among the top players in her class since her freshman year. She is a three-time — soon to be four-time — All-America selection. She has been a member of the USA Youth National Team since 2010 and been vital to the success of her Northern Lights club team, which won the U.S. Junior National Championship in 2012 and has finished third in seven other national tournaments.

"She's been playing volleyball since Day 1," her mother said. "I've got a picture of her when she was 3, down on one knee, showing elementary school kids how to dig."

Her abilities kept moving her forward despite being younger than everyone else, so much so that even her mother has been surprised at times.

"There's a curtain between us and the ninth-graders when we practice. When she was in third grade, I looked around it and there she was, practicing with the older girls," Vicki Swenson said. "I had no idea."

As soon as she was old enough, Samantha moved into the Hopkins' starting lineup, as an outside hitter in seventh grade. A year later she took over setting duties. She concluded her career as the state record holder in set assists and service aces.

"I've had so many opportunities because of volleyball and have been to so many places I never would have had the chance to see," she said. "Like Croatia. That was beautiful. And Slovenia. I've loved all of it."

She committed to Minnesota in the spring of 2012, before her sophomore year. At the time, her mother asked Minnesota coach Hugh McCutcheon what he wanted in a setter. His answer was brief and to the point.