The season-ending injury to senior outside hitter Lilly Wachholz against Iowa on Sept. 8 left an opportunity for a new outside hitter to rise for the Iowa State women’s volleyball team. 

Iowa State’s coaching staff tried several rotational players to fill the kills that Wachholz had provided. After a long search, it is safe to say that they found her replacement and then some. 

Sophomore outside hitter Mesaiya Bettis has transformed her game and cemented herself as one of the top pin-hitters on the Cyclone roster. 

“Having her [Wachholz] in the back of my mind helped a ton,” Bettis said. “Lilly [Wachholz] is a very calm, humble player and you can watch her play and become good.”

Bettis had shown flashes of filling the role against Hawaii and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, in games where she had nine kills in both matches. Two games later against the defending Big 12 Champions and No. 12 Arizona State, Bettis had nine kills.

Not only did she have nine kills, but she had an astonishing hitting percentage of .900 for the match in the loss to the Sun Devils. 

Bettis set a career-high in kills in back-to-back matches against Cincinnati and Colorado. The biggest game for Bettis was against Houston on Oct. 24, where she had 23 kills hitting .436. 

The 23 kills hit by Bettis are the second-highest single-match kill total by a Cyclone player this season. 

“It’s taken her a while. It took her August through half of September to find her game,” Iowa State head coach Christy Johnson-Lynch said. “She’s really finding her confidence.” 

Coming out of Burnsville High School, Bettis was ranked as one of the top recruits in the state of Minnesota and was nominated for the Minnesota Gatorade Player of the Year in 2024. 

Bettis redshirted her freshman season at Iowa State because of a torn labrum that Bettis decided to have season-ending surgery to repair. 

“Not getting to fully experience my freshman season and not playing on the court was hard for sure,” Bettis said. “I saw a whole different side of volleyball coming off the court.”

The Apple Valley native recovered and put a lot of time into getting back to the player that she was in high school. After nearly a year, Bettis was finally back to 100%. 

In Iowa State’s hitting system for this season, Bettis was more of a finesse attacker. She hit more roll and tip shots as opposed to powerful spikes. Lately, Bettis has been swinging higher and harder for more powerful attacks, along with her ability to hit finesse kills.

“For two weeks we worked on getting her feet to the ball, being fast on the last two steps and getting that arm up and swinging,” Iowa State associate head coach and outside hitting coach Ciara Jones said.

Like against Arizona State, Bettis doesn’t just lead the Cyclones in kills for a match against lower-level teams. On Sunday against No. 15 Kansas, Bettis led the team with 15 kills and was the only Iowa State player to get over 10 kills against the Jayhawks. 

The versatility Bettis displays, being able to attack with different shots and a great leaping ability, provides a matchup nightmare for opposing teams.