Exeter’s Sara Wesley heading to Canisius College in Buffalo

A middle hitter for the most part, Sara Wesley has been a very valuable member of the Exeter Township High School girls volleyball team. Next season the fans at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York will find out how valuable she is because she recently signed her Letter-of-Intent to play volleyball there.

It’s a D1 school and Wesley wanted to test herself at that level of volleyball, but it’s still a relatively small school which appealed to her.

“My aunt went there,’ said Sara. “The coaches are nice and the atmosphere there is great, I liked the campus right away. It didn’t take me long to figure out that this is where I wanted to be.’

Wesley was playing for a club team that was in a tournament in Philadelphia last April. Canisius head volleyball coach Cathy Hummel was there. Sara’s club coach knew Coach Hummel and introduced the two of them. Later that day Hummel called Wesley and invited her to visit the Canisius campus. Two weeks later Sara was on the campus, getting to know her future coach and teammates.

“It’s right in the city and I like that,’ said Wesley. “I’m not a city person, but Canisius is a clean campus and I just felt at home there.’

Wesley had a lot of choices. She had offers from 30 schools, all wanting her to play volleyball. But in her sophomore year, she tore her ACL. One by one they all dropped out, not wanting to take a chance on a player with that kind of injury. But she worked hard to get back into playing shape and is playing better than ever.

“I’m looking forward to playing at Canisius,’ said Wesley. “On the other hand, I will miss my teammates at Exeter. I will miss how much fun it was being with each other. We were like family. We had fun practices and were very supportive of each other.

“I have to admit I’m extremely nervous. I’m going from comfortable to playing for new coaches and playing with new teammates. Still, I’m looking forward to it.