Jessica Weeg, WHS '08 - Big Ten Volleyballer

The Roundup recently caught up with Jessica Weeg, Wyoming Class of 2008, via e-mail.  Jess is a member of Indiana University's 13-5 (2-2 in the Big Ten) Women's Volleyball team. 

A reminder of her Wyoming career:  Jess led the Cowboys to three CHL volleyball championships. She was a two-time Ohio Division II-III All-Star team member, making second team her junior year and first her senior.  As a senior captain she was named the CHL Player of the Year.  She also excelled in track and field, holding school records for the triple jump and the high jump and earning a trip to the state championships in the high jump.

As a freshman last year at IU, Jess made an appearance in four matches, playing in 10 sets and earning a pair of starts against Eastern Kentucky and Ball State, both 3-0 sweeps for the Hoosiers.  She totaled seven kills, two digs and four blocks on the season and posted a pair of blocks against Albany.  She recorded three kills, a dig and a block in her first career start and put away four kills and tallied a block versus Ball State.

Jess is an outside hitter.  So far this season she has had six kills and has a hitting percentage of .417 while appearing in seven matches.  She'd like to get more playing time.  Although it may be hard to believe for those of us (men and women) who used to literally look up to her, she says, "In the Big Ten I'm just not as big as the other girls and that's just a fact that no matter how hard I work, I'm considered "small", so that's definitely working against me.  I...just have to keep on working!"  She's got a great place to do so.  IU just built an addition to its football stadium, and in it they built a brand new weight room- the largest in the country. "It's almost ridiculous how big it is, so that's really cool since almost all the sports teams could work out in there at the same time if they wanted to."

The team is off to a very good start at 13-5, and recently won a big rivalry game against Purdue in West Lafayette (which was broadcast on the Big Ten network to boot).  The team's motto this year is "Make It Happen" and Jess says, "...it's written on all of our volleyball clothes- it means that we are going to the NCAA tournament this year, and we are going to make it happen rather than leaving it up to chance."  Last year IU was the bubble team on the wrong side of the bubble- the first team to be left out of the tournament. Indiana has not gone to the NCAAs since 2002 so the team is anxious to make it back.

Jess is studying journalism with a business concentration and a French minor. She'll turn 20 on Halloween.

Best of luck Jess!