Living up to the hype.

Breaking records.

Winning matches.

Jasmine Mooney did it all for the Marian volleyball program during her high school career.

In November, the senior led the Fillies to a third PIAA state silver medal across four years and racked up many accolades along the way.

Mooney’s poise and ability to backpack the team made her the undisputed 2017 Times News Volleyball Player of the Year for the second year in a row.

“I didn’t feel that much more of an expectation than the other years,” said Mooney “Junior year, I was still a leader, and it kind of carried over to this year. I mixed up my shots a lot more and have been smarter with the ball. I’ve avoided the block and haven’t had as many errors as other years.”

Sometimes she’d fool her opponents by pretending to wind up for a smash, but instead would gently finesse the ball over the net — just one of the many skills Mooney had in her bag of tricks. However, she was always at her best when she went right at the defense.

High, hard, and fast.

Mooney ended with 1,308 career kills, second in Marian history to former Times News Volleyball Player of the Year Marykate Sherkness. Mooney piled up a whopping 3,148 attacks over four seasons, including 1,127 this year across 93 sets, resulting in 496 kills.

“I wanted to be first in kills as a hitter,” Mooney said. “Once I got to Marian, I realized it was kind of impossible with Marykate (Sherkness), considering I didn’t play much freshman year. The ace thing has been important to me, because the coaches say that’s the one thing you can control yourself. Nobody else is back there serving or tossing it for you, so that was one of my focus points after sophomore year, after I got my topspin serve. I realized how much creativity I could put on the ball.”

Her unique topspin serve might have been creative to her, but it was lethal against opposing teams. What a weapon it proved to be, as it helped Mooney become the dominant force that she was on the court. She finished her high school career with 400 aces — 128 coming this season.

“She just worked on it,” explained Marian head coach John “Doc” Fallabel. “If they serve hard, I just let them serve hard. Last year, she was No. 4 in the nation in aces. Her season numbers are career numbers for most people.

“The thing that is most amazing about her is her ability to hit the spinning ball out of the air. That was the most impressive skill that someone has, one that I’ve never seen before. It’s a ball that’s 20 feet in the air that’s spinning, and she hits it wherever she wants to.”

Of course there were many signature moments throughout her four-year career, which also featured four District 11 championships. But there were a few big moments this year that Mooney won’t ever forget.

“The Holy Redeemer match reminded us that we can play as a team and push ourselves to the full potential,” she said. “The Blue Mountain match for the Schuylkill League Championship, I still don’t know how we did it to be honest. We were down 0-2. Then we won the third set. But the fourth set was the most memorable moment for me. We were down 21-16, and I went back to serve and we brought it back to 22-21 and ended up winning the match in five sets.”

Mooney said it doesn’t feel like her high school career is over yet.

“I don’t think it will hit me until next season starts,” she said. “You always have to put the jersey away for a while, but I don’t think that it will hit me that it’s never going to come on again.”

All high school athletes come and eventually go. But few are as good at their respective sports as Mooney was. And it’s possible that Fallabel might have never leaned on a player as heavily as he leaned on Mooney. The Fillies relied upon her, and Mooney’s upper-echelon-type talent powered Marian through almost every tough situation.

“I’ll miss her more than anybody could know,” said Fallabel. “Not just because she was a great player, but she was a good kid to be around. She went through a lot of stuff, and she held her own. I’ve had other players crumble when they’ve had that much pressure on them, but not her. Load her up and let her arm fall off was the direction I’d give to my setter.

“The coaches were very tough on her physically and mentally, and we expected her to carry us. That’s a hard thing for a 17-year old kid, but she responded.”