Ella Larkin’s journey from the heart of Kansas to the sandy shores of LSU, then back to her home state, was unique to say the least.
It’s not the path the Kansas State transfer imagined for herself growing up, but as she’s back home in her home state, she reflects on the trail she took.
The senior libero grew up in Wichita, loving to play volleyball every day. She idolized her father, who played collegiately at BYU and ended up playing professionally.
Larkin knew she wanted to play volleyball in college, but something on television sparked her interest in another way.
“I sat down one day and watched the AVP, a professional beach volleyball league, and thought it was so much fun,” Larkin said. “It’s two people and you basically get to touch the ball every play.”
In the Midwest, beach volleyball players are hard to come by. Luckily for Larkin, she had a friend who was also interested. They decided to enter some tournaments but had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
“We went to our first tournament in Kansas City, and lost every single game,” Larkin said. “We didn’t know the rules and went there to play for fun, but everybody we played was so serious about it.”
Larkin and her teammate, Ellie Shank, decided to take the sport seriously and learn more about it. Fortunately, there were beach volleyball courts in town for them to practice, and their careers took off from there.
“We trained at the Wichita Sports Forum for years and finally started to fully understand the game,” Larkin said. “We started traveling again and went to California for a big tournament where college coaches came. We had success and it kind of took off from there.”
Larkin and Shank both committed to LSU out of high school to play beach volleyball, but they kept the door open for indoor volleyball as well. Larkin continuously played indoors alongside the sand, so she committed to the Tigers to play both.
After finishing up her sophomore year at LSU, Larkin decided to fully focus on the beach side of volleyball. Once she finished that year, LSU hired a new staff that Larkin didn’t mesh with at first.
She decided to enter the portal with her eyes set on finding a school that would offer both, but when K-State called, she couldn’t pass it up.
“Whenever [head coach Jason Mansfield] and K-State reached out to me, it was the perfect scenario,” Larkin said. “It just seemed like the perfect situation being able to come home for my senior year.”
With Larkin fully focused on indoor volleyball, her life looks less stressful as she no longer has to juggle playing two different sports.
“The coaches here have made it so much easier for me knowing that this potentially could be my last year,” Larkin said. “That allows me to just want to ball out and have fun.”
Although the sports are very different, Larkin is still able to use some beach volleyball skills on the indoor court. On the sand, players have to be able to attack and defend, which made Larkin a better all-around player.
“I feel like I got some fast, twitch muscles from the beach that help me with my indoor game,” Larkin said. “It’s been easier to use that same kind of muscles and react as much as I did on the beach. You also have to have so much ball control for beach volleyball, which helps me on the indoor court being able to pass super well.”
Defensively, Larkin leads the Wildcats with 4.45 digs per set this season, including notching 19 or more digs in each of K-State’s last seven matches.
She’s been a key cog in K-State earning a 7-4 mark in Big 12 play, climbing back toward .500 at 9–11 after a difficult non-conference start to the season.
