Attack Mode

As the official maternal figure
on the Wichita State Shocker volleyball team, Mikaela Raudsepp handles all the
duties you would expect.

A couple teammates are
buried in homework, for example, so she’s off on a
food run to Shocker-favorite Chipotle. “But never on game day,” she says with a laugh. “That would be bad.”

A consistent member of the Athletic Director’s honor roll,
she helps other players in particularly difficult classes. 
She makes certain teammates have licenses and boarding passes at the ready when checking in at the airport for
road trips. At practice, she
keeps track of the elusive training bands.

Typical stuff.

But Raudsepp also gets unusual requests on a fairly regular basis – pleas that most 21-year-old female college students wouldn’t be able to fulfill. (Nor most males, for that matter.) When she lived in the dormatory her freshman year, she was the go-to gal whenever car trouble hit her fellow athletes. “I can’t even tell you how many guys’ tires I’ve changed. Or oil, or headlights. I’d be the one all the basketball guys in the dorms would call: ‘Uh, my car isn’t starting. Can you help me out?’”

Perhaps the oddest appeal comes from Shocker coach Chris Lamb: “I want elk steak, Mik! Elk steak!”

Not so typical.

Lamb has turned the Shockers into a Missouri Valley Conference powerhouse by bringing in talented players from all over the country, but it’s doubtful any have been more interesting than Raudsepp, a 6-foot-2 junior outside hitter who serves as team mom, mechanic and big-game hunter.

“She’s an awesome girl,” senior Katy Dudzinski says. “Compassionate – that’s a good word to describe her.” Adds senior libero Dani Mostrom, “She’s definitely one of the best teammates I’ve ever had.”  

It’s not difficult to uncover where Raudsepp’s caring personality and unusual skill set come from. A small-town girl from Dundee, Ore., a city of about 3,000 people located 30 miles southwest of Portland, her mother was a physical therapist and her father owned an auto body shop – an upbringing that taught the value of helping others, her high automobile IQ and what she calls “a quest for knowledge. I can remember following my dad around at his shop all the time: ‘Teach me something, show me something.’ ”

Her father, Karl, also shared his passion for hunting. When she was still too young to tag along, Karl Raudsepp would enchant his daughter with stories of the hunt, tales she found “amazing.” 

She started carrying her own weapon – a rifle handed down from her grandfather – when she was 13, harvested her first bull at 14 and another one at 16 in the family’s secret location in New Mexico. Ask her about the size of her biggest trophy elk, and she leans forward and holds court on how elks are measured, which, to the novice, is a verbal blur of phrases such as “tip to tip” and “main beam” and “Boone and Crockett” and so on.

The bottom line, though, is this: Raudsepp’s second bull was a 371, and anything over 300 is considered a trophy by most elk enthusiasts.

Since elk season is in the fall and conflicts with volleyball, Raudsepp hasn’t been able to fulfill Lamb’s request for an elk steak, but she still goes on the occasional hunt in Kansas. “I’ve been turkey hunting a couple times with my boyfriend, and pheasant and quail. I don’t find it very fun. I mean, I enjoy going. I’m always looking for an excuse to be in the woods, but I just love big-game hunting with my dad.”

Mostrom cracks a wide smile when Raudsepp’s hobby is mentioned. “She’s the first teammate I’ve ever had that’s an avid hunter,” she says. “I grew up in Springfield, Missouri, and lots of people went turkey hunting. If girls went, it was just to accompany their dad or their brother. But Mikaela, she goes with her dad and she actually goes hunting. The first time she told us, we were like, ‘Oh cool, hunting.’ Then she started talking about elk hunting, and we were like, ‘Wait, the big moose-looking things?’”

After a recent practice, Raudsepp stresses several times how much she has grown to love Wichita State and the volleyball community, but she certainly never imagined herself attending a college in the midwest. In fact, Lamb was interested in Raudsepp long before she reciprocated.

Raudsepp says WSU started recruiting her as a 14-year-old during a tournament in Reno, Nev. She was determined to be what she described as “a Pac-12 athlete” and had several offers in hand. Then, disaster – or what she viewed as such, when she injured her knee and required surgery during the fall season of her junior year.

Raudsepp says she made the “dreaded calls” to the coaches recruiting her, and several were scared off and dropped her from their wish lists. Dreams shattered, and robbed of some of the explosiveness that made her stand out among other lean and long players, she pondered giving up the sport. “There was a lot of soul searching. Honestly, I kind of quit looking for a place to go.”

In December 2012, Raudsepp was still grappling with her decision when she sat down in the family’s living room to watch the NCAA tournment with her father. The Shockers made a splash that year, dispatching No. 20-ranked Kansas to make the Sweet Sixteen before losing to highly ranked USC.

Wichita State’s run reminded Raudsepp of Coach Lamb and a recruiting letter – buried under hundreds of other pieces of recruiting correspondence – in a desk drawer in her room upstairs. She called Lamb, made two visits and committed to the Shocks.

Raudsepp made an instant impact at Wichita State, totaling 11 kills against No. 19-ranked Kentucky in her debut, becoming the first freshman to lead the Shockers in their opening match since Sara Younes in 2001. 

Although Raudsepp is obviously blessed with physical gifts, she says the knee injury forced her to adjust her game. “I was the highest kid in the gym (in high school). I hit the hardest, and very little could stop me in my head. After that (the surgery), I had to be crafty. I had to be able to find the weakness in other players and exploit those weaknesses. How do you continue to manufacture points when you’re no longer the biggest, strongest or the highest? It’s a different game for me now. I’m a thinker.”

Says Dudzinski, “She’s big into the mental game. She told me that on her recruiting trip one of the things that stood out to her was the scouting report – how in depth it is and all the numbers. And I’m going, scouting report? She’s a very analytical person and a very analytical player.”

Entering the final weekend of Missouri Valley Conference play, Raudsepp led WSU with a career-high 278 kills. Her hitting percentage was at .253, up from .218 as a sophomore and .154 as a freshman.

This season hasn’t been without its inconsistencies, but Raudsepp pleased Lamb with a career-best 19 kills and four errors on Nov. 11 in a victory against Illinois State. 

“I’ve had a couple rough games here and there, but overall my mindset is still on attack mode, and I think it has been this season, even through the tough times,” she says.

Her goal is to become a six-rotation player. “She’s got to do that a couple times, where she passes and plays defense in the back row and she owned that,” Mostrom says. “She threw her body around and got a couple really amazing digs just by being able and willing to put her body in the line of attack.”

Raudsepp, a first-team All-MVC scholar athlete, plans on returning to Oregon after she graduates. She recently changed her major to general studies biology and plans on becoming a nurse or a physical therapist – fields in which she can make a difference.

“Everyone always asks me, even the coaches, ‘Why do you feel the need to take care of everyone else?’

“I don’t feel a need to do it,” she answers. “It’s just who I am.”