Junior outside hitter Macey Gardner hits the ball past the Stanford front line during the Sun Devils’ 3-1 loss to the Cardinal on Sunday, Oct. 4, 2012. (Photo by Kyle Newman)Last week, when I wrote about Jaelen Strong, I couldn't have envisioned the miraculous ending to ASU's game against USC and the immediate outpouring of support for the star receiver.
Strong, along with junior running back DJ Foster and quarterbacks redshirt senior Taylor Kelly and redshirt junior Mike Bercovici, has been putting up ridiculous, record-breaking numbers so far this season. But their performances are rivaled by someone playing in a different arena.
Junior outside hitter Macey Gardner is putting up numbers that will likely land her in the ranks of the best women's volleyball players this season.
Two and a half seasons into the career that had been dubbed by coaches as "The Macey Show," Gardner may be the best athlete ASU has, comparatively.
While most sports fans will hone in on the gridiron, they ought to take a peek at the hardwood court where Gardner and the No. 17 Sun Devil volleyball team are tearing things up.
Although the team lost to Utah over the weekend, its season has been impressive. The Sun Devils are 12-4 on the season and an even 2-2 in Pac-12 play.
In the loss to the Utes, Gardner once again moved up the list of most career kills all time at ASU. With 1325 kills in two plus seasons, She's eighth all-time at ASU and if she keeps up this pace, she could end up in the top three, if not No. 1.
Even as the team tries to add more diversity and balance to the offense, Gardner ranks in the top five in total kills in the Pac-12.
Looking just at the numbers, Gardner is having a "down" year, yet she still leads ASU by a comfortable margin in kills and has been challenging elite conference talent.
I don't mean to discredit the performances of any of the school's current football stars, who are also adding their names to the record books, but rather, I urge fans to pay attention to one of ASU's brightest stars before she's gone for good.
Sixteen games remain in the 2014 season for the Sun Devils, and although their ranking will likely fall after being upset by an unranked Utah team, ASU still has a very good chance of making a run in the NCAA tournament. Gardner is a big reason why.
The landscape of college sports belongs to football. Star quarterbacks who rank amongst a school's all-time greats will get infinitely more credit than a volleyball player who does the same. It's a simple fact of life.
However, it isn't a very good fact.
Gardner has proven herself to be a household name for this generation of Sun Devils and ought to be treated like one.
Reach the sports editor at icbeck@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @ICBeck21
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