File photo by Travis Rosenau Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart’s Lily Hubin hits the ball during a Section 2A Volleyball Tournament game against BOLD on Oct. 24.

HECTOR — Volleyball players have to do a lot if they want to be in the game for all six rotations. They have to dig, hit, block, serve, and sometimes even set.

Lily Hubin can not only do all of this, she excels in it.

“I used to always just be a setter and hitter,” Hubin said. “And this year we were looking at just me being a setter because we graduated our other setter last year. But we put Elizabeth Ovitt into the role of setting too so I could also hit.

So, I just kind of took that job, that we needed more attackers and I need to get better at my hitting role to really help my team succeed this year. And in the back row too, defense is such a key position to win games. So really just all the blocking and in the back row getting digs, it’s also huge for our successes.”

A setter and right-side hitter for Buffalo Lake-Hector Stewart’s 6-2 formation, Hubin amassed 300 kills, 477 set assists, 348 digs, 83 aces and 53 blocks this year, all marks that would have put her on notice for one of the best players in the Tomahawk-Valley Conference. But the fact that she was able to hit all of those numbers made her stand above the rest. Along with being named the Tomahawk-Valley Conference, Tomahawk Division Player of the Year, Hubin has been selected as the 2024 All-Journal Volleyball Player of the Year, as voted on by The Journal’s sports staff.

“I’m super thankful,” Hubin said. “It’s a huge honor to have. I’ve set so many goals from when I started playing varsity, and looking at Player of the Year, that’s always been one of my biggest goals. So to achieve that is just so amazing. There’s so many great players in our area that also could have gotten these awards, so I’m just super thankful that I’ve received them.”

Hubin serves as a Swiss Army Knife for the BLHS volleyball team, but she feels her true passion is setting up her teammates.

“I like getting kills, but overall I think I like setting the most,” she said. “I love setting my teammates up for success and watching them get kills, I think that’s pretty rewarding for me.”

That setter’s mindset extends out to all aspects of her game — setting up her teammates for success. Hubin was able to help lead her team to an undefeated record in the Tomahawk Division, as well as a school-record 26 wins this season and a trip to the Section 2A Volleyball semifinals. Despite this, Hubin still sees herself as just another player on a great team.

“It feels really great, but honestly I don’t see myself as a standout player. I try to showcase my other teammates, especially being a setter. Setting everyone up, I focus on giving my other teammates the glory, because they also deserve that too for sure.”

Hubin’s play may have done just that, as she is joined on the All-Journal Volleyball teams by three other Mustangs — Kelsey Ulrich on the second team and Chloe Schultz and Hubin’s younger sister, Lauren, on the third team. Hubin’s leadership and unselfishness was important to BLHS this season, as the Mustang’s had just one senior this year. Hubin found herself stepping into more of a leadership role in the absence of some graduated players.

“Last year, we graduated a lot of good leadership role players,” Hubin said. “I felt like I needed to step up this year, especially having my younger sister on the team. I felt like I needed to be a role model for her and for other girls that maybe didn’t have as much varsity experience. I tried to step up as best as I could, and I got some advice from the older girls and my coach, and I tried to help them to success.”

Hubin’s favorite memory from the season was winning the Tomahawk-Valley, Tomahawk Division championship after going undefeated in conference play this year.

“That was a big goal of ours last season, and we came really close, but we fell just short,” Hubin said. “So getting that this year was huge for us. And having the most wins our school has had in volleyball, which was 26, that was really special to us to be able to set that record and set that up for future generations of our school.”

For her career, Hubin surpassed 1,000 career set assists and digs this season and sits just 10 kills shy of 1,000 career kills. Those high totals have been a goal for Hubin, helping her achieve the level of personal and team success that she’s seen.

“Working at that and seeing the upperclassmen that I used to play with achieving those goals too, I just felt super inspired,” Hubin said. “That was something that I worked at every season and offseason. It was a huge thing to get for me, and I really couldn’t have done it without my teammates who have pushed me, especially the one’s that I have been playing with a lot of my varsity years.”

With only one senior graduating for next year, Hubin believes that the Mustangs can repeat as division champions this season, as well as have a chance to make it to the state tournament.

“We’re looking at getting the [division] championship again,” she said. “That would be great for us. And winning our Sleepy Eye and St. James invitational tournaments again next year, that was back-to-back that we won. So that would be great to go back-to-back-to-back next year. And getting further in the playoffs. We want to play Mayer [Lutheran], we want to beat them, we want to go to state next year. That’s always the goal for us, but we fall short a little bit every year.”