Team Player: Glenwood’s Allison Koontz turns softball, volleyball and track success into Athlete of the Year honor

In the ecosystem of sports, the softball pitcher and the volleyball setter share unique yet similar properties.

Both have the ball in their hands a lot. Both set the tempo and pace of play. Both combine athletic instinct and headiness in equal measure.

Both are the generals in their respective battles.

Allison Koontz did both for Glenwood this year. She sees a lot of connective tissue between setter in volleyball and the circle in softball. She just likes the ball in her hands.

“I feel (the connection) from the pressure standpoint,” she said. “The setter has to set up the hitters to hit and the pitcher has to be good enough to strike out batters. It’s expectations, really. You’re so much a part of what happens on every play.”

Koontz was a “part of what happens” for Glenwood in more ways than one during her junior season. She directed the Rams’ potent offensive attack as an All-Hawkeye 10 Conference setter and tossed six shutouts for a 20-win softball team. Last spring, she ran in four events at the state track, helping the Rams’ sprint medley relay team of Elaina Dougherty, Megan Hughes and Brooklyn Schultz to a fifth-place medal.

Koontz is The Opinion-Tribune’s 2023-2024 Athlete of the Year.

When asked what sticks out to her most about her junior season, Koontz doesn’t list her 12 strikeouts in a shutout win over Denison or even her five RBI day against Red Oak.

No, she lists playing with the group of seniors among her biggest highlights.

“I’ve been with those seniors the entirety of my whole high school career and it was great to play for them. It was such a fun team year.”

The Rams went 20-11and reached the regional quarterfinals on the diamond this season. Koontz had a big hand in that success. She went 17-7 with a 2.14 earned run average and 151 strikeouts in 156 and 2/3s innings.

Softball, she said, has always been her No. 1 sport. She first took up the game at age 3 and started pitching at 8. She learned to throw a devastating change up at age 10 and now has a six-pitch repertoire, including a fast ball that can reach 60 miles per hour.

“I saw the pitchers and I wanted to try it, and I got some lessons and that’s when it really started for me,” she said. “I really like the team aspect of softball. You get to do multiple things in one sport, and I find that really fun.”

When not dominating in the circle she was one of the most feared hitters in western Iowa. She led the team with a .415 batting average and six home runs while driving in 24 runs as the Rams’ leadoff hitter.

But Koontz didn’t start out as a star and never let her success get in the way of the work.

“I try not to look at my stats,” she said. “It can stress me out sometimes. I just try and do my best and go from there.”

Competition has always been a guiding force in her drive and her success. But it doesn’t always make her easy to be around, she admits.

“I think sometimes I’m a little too competitive,” she said. “If I don’t do very well in a softball game or in a set in volleyball, I get too hard on myself. I’m trying to fix that.”

She admits she’s superstitious to the point she follows the same routine for every softball game: she must do batting practice before each game, she must stretch before she pitches, and she always draws a cross in the dirt before every inning and every at bat.

“I’ve been doing it since eighth grade. I’ve just always done it.”

Glenwood head softball coach Ryan Koch said Koontz’s competitive nature certainly sets her apart. But it’s her willingness to play whatever role he or any coach needs, her very “coachability,” that is the rarest of qualities.

“She would play anywhere on the field we’d ask her to,” Koch said. “She’d hit anywhere in the lineup we asked her. She was all about the team. You don’t find a teammate as good as Alli Koontz. When a kid that’s good and that good of teammate, that’s special.”
 

Koch took over the Glenwood softball program before Koontz’s sophomore year. Almost immediately after accepting the job, he heard the name “Alli Koontz.”

“I just kept hearing her name and when I met her, what everyone said was true,” he said. “Every time you have her in the circle you have a chance to win against anybody. She’ll keep you in every game on the mound and then her hitting ability, is incredible. Seeing it every day is impressive.”

When told of her coach’s comments, Koontz was characteristically modest.“I try and just be wherever the coach needs me, where my team needs me, and I do the best I can wherever that is.”

That attitude has served her well in her chosen sports. She didn’t take up volleyball until sixth grade but slid into the setter role because the coach simply asked her to give it a shot.

“I always go where they need me,” she said. “I don’t think I really got to where I wanted to be or even any good at it (setting) until freshman year.”

Koontz played sparingly that first season on varsity but has largely been the Rams’ top setter the last two seasons. She led the conference with 871 set assists this season for a 30-11 Glenwood squad.

Koontz considers it a tie between track and volleyball for her second favorite sport.

“They both have their pros, and both have their cons.”

She feels different expectations in track and softball compared to volleyball. In track, she’s a long-striding sprinter who can run anything from the 100 to the 400. In softball, she’s in the circle in nearly every game, the ball constantly in her hands.

But in volleyball, she says there’s a little less pressure.

“I put most of it on myself, but I feel like my role is different in volleyball.”

Koch, the Rams’ softball coach, sees that psychological tug and pull playing out in her approach to each sport.

“Being a multi-sport athlete has helped her big time,” he said. “She is the perfect example of how playing multi sports can help you excel in the sport you choose to continue your career in. Track helps her big time as well because we use her speed on the bases to our advantage as well. Proud and honored to have coached an athlete like Alli Koontz.”

Some multi-sport athletes might see track as a means to a conditioning end, a segue way get ready for their next sport. Not Koontz.

“I put the same focus in (I do for softball). I really just go out and do the best I can in every sport I’m in. I enjoy being with my friends and competing. That’s what really drives me.”

Of her many track events, Koontz prefers the 4x200-meter relay for its pace and team feel. She ran that event, the 4x100 and the open 100 in addition to the sprint medley at the Blue Oval at Drake Stadium.

Again, always willing to play a role.

“I try and just be wherever the coach needs me, where my team needs me, and I do the best I can wherever that is.”

Koontz still has another year to compete for Glenwood, and after that, college. Both of her parents were college athletes. It’s something she’d like to be as well. A 4.0 student who plans to major in radiography or nursing, she has her sights set on college softball and the interest is there, both she and her coach said.

“From day one I saw what a competitor she was,” Koch said. “When I saw her in the batting cage, the way she swung the bat and in BP (batting practice) you could tell she treated it like a real at bat in a game. She’s always been that way. She comes to compete every pitch and every at bat.

“There were a lot of coaches watching her, seeing what I saw, this summer. I’d say we had a college coach at pretty much every game.”