DE PERE (NBC 26) — It has been a special high school career for West De Pere senior volleyball star Lauren Tisler.
A few weeks ago, Tisler set a program record, but she says all she cares about is helping the Phantoms win their first conference title since 2003.
“It's so important to me because I'm the only one left from my freshman year on that team and going from having a losing record overall and in conference to all of a sudden being at the top like it's so different, it's so surreal,” Tisler said.
If there’s one thing you need to know about Tisler, it's this.
“No matter what it is, if she has a goal, she's going to find a way to achieve it,” Phantoms first-year head coach Alei Christensen said.
WATCH TISLER'S STORY HERE!
This year, the two-time Phantoms captain had her sights on becoming the program’s all-time leader in kills.
“She puts smoke on it,” Phantoms senior setter Meg Bethke said.
“When she's up in the air and she's about to put a ball down, you just get that butterfly feeling like you're on the court,” Christensen said. “She's really something magical to watch.”
She broke the record in a win over Bay Port a few weeks ago.
“I'm still building on it and I want to keep pushing and I want to make it stand for longer,” Tisler said. “It's still a work in progress and that's how I feel about it.”
But Tisler is more than an athlete. She’s a scholar student who has over a 4.2 GPA, got a 35 on her ACT exam and is in the National Honor Society.
That, combined with her volleyball prowess, earned Tisler a scholarship to play at Division I Boston College next year—her dream school—where she’s hoping to become a surgeon.
“Knowing that those first four years, I don't have to worry about it, like I can just work on saving up my money and focus on volleyball in school and not worrying about having a job and trying to balance everything else is like a bunch of pressure lifted off and it's super nice,” she said.
However, before all that, she’s hoping to lead her squad to a conference title and then the state tournament.
“We have to take it one game at a time and just find success and smooth out some things in practices,” Tisler said.
