Mount Boucherie volleyball player Scott Plocktis has long had Trinity Western University in his sights as a place where he would love to play post secondary volleyball.
Now Plocktis will get his wish as the 17-year-old West Kelowna high school volleyball star has signed a scholarship deal to attend Trinity Western and start his CIS volleyball career with the Spartans, one of the top men’s volleyball programs in the country.
“I’m really excited, it’s going to be a lot of fun,” said Plocktis, a 6-foot-4 setter. “Their program is unreal and I really like their coach. He first talked to me in Grade 10 and ever since then I was thinking that’s where I wanted to play.”
Plocktis served notice he would be a stellar high school player in Grade 10 when he made the Mount Boucherie senior boys team as a starter. That team would go on to win the city and valley championship with Plocktis helping to run the floor. Over the next three years he would become a leader of the Bears on and off the court, all the while maintaining a near perfect grade point average.
That culminated this year when the Province newspaper named Plocktis the fourth-ranked high school volleyball player in the entire province.
“Scott is great athlete which is the most important attribute an up and coming setter can have,” Trinity coach Ben Josephson said. “He has tremendous body control and coordination which will allow him to make a lot of tough sets thus allowing our offense to operate smoothly even out of system.”
Plocktis is a natural setter and will be groomed at Trinity as its next setter. However this year in high school he played away from his natural position and was a hitter. He never missed a beat and was considered one of the top attackers in the province. “This well-rounded volleyball skill set will allow Scott to make plays for us in more ways than just setting,” said Josephson. “He will be an attacking threat at all times and has a great jump serve as well.”
Plocktis has been playing volleyball almost since he can remember. He first started going to volleyball camps in Grade 3 and began club volleyball by Grade 6. Through middle school his talent was starting to show and by Grade 10 he made the senior Bears.
“Volleyball has been my life,” he said. “I started early so that helped me develop. Being tall is a big part of it too. It really helps with the setting.”
This year, the senior boys at Mount Boucherie had a low turnout for tryouts. Plocktis and the other volleyball players recruited some friends that hadn’t played in a few years and hit the court with a team that was a very close-knit group. It made for a fun season for the Bears and resulted in a seventh place showing at provincials.
Not bad for a throw-together bunch.
“This year playing with my friends was the best part,” he said. “Our coach did a good job of working with all the guys. Some of them hadn’t played since Grade 9. It was a really fun year.”
Plocktis is now focussed on getting ready for next year and the step up to CIS. He has begun playing club volleyball in the Fraser Valley with an Under-18 team coached by the Trinity Western staff and featuring all of the school’s recruits.
He knows it’s time to focus on making the step from high school to the highest level university sports in Canada has to offer.
“It’s going to be a big step,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot faster, harder and quicker so it will be a big jump. But that’s what the coaches are there for, to help me adjust.”
Judging by his background, adjusting shouldn’t be a problem for Scott Plocktis. He is ready to graduate high school and move on to post secondary athletics and academics after being accepted into Trinity Western’s human kinetics program.
Now just waiting for next year to begin is the hard part.
“It’s crazy to think that I’m going to be playing with those guys at the CIS level,” he said. “Being one of those guys is going to be unreal.”
