Much of Emma Beattie’s senior year of high school was a blur. Her electric volleyball season in the fall shook her life up. Recruiting phone calls and emails were frequent through the first half of the year, but it still didn’t feel real — until an assistant coach at the University of Alaska Anchorage texted Beattie asking for uniform sizes and a jersey number.

After Beattie selected No. 4, because of her affinity for even numbers, the last nine or so months of her life finally set in. Her senior year saw her commit to an NCAA Division II volleyball program and become the AIA 2A Central Region Player of the Year.

She can now add one more accolade to her resume. Emma Beattie is the Sedona Red Rock High School Female Athlete of the Year, given out by the Sedona Red Rock News.

“I just can’t put into words how grateful I am that I get the opportunity to keep playing, especially at another level,” she said. “Having the opportunity to go continue to play volleyball for another four years, I couldn’t be more grateful than that … Everything that I looked forward to when I was an underclassman and then a junior, I did get in my senior year.”

The topic of gratitude reoccurred time and time again during Beattie’s nearly 40-minute conversation with the Red Rock News. Her voice swelled with emotion as she mentioned the unwavering support from her family and friends through her recruiting journey, a roller coaster volleyball season and a tearful Senior Night in late October.

Her support system played a clear role in her journey, like any successful athlete’s, but her work ethic is easily observed, even from a distance. Even after her volleyball season she could be spotted practicing bump passes near the bleachers of other Sedona sporting events. Her high school work load has added weight with her role on the Flagstaff Ascent volleyball club team.

Those hours poured into her craft paid off. In her senior season Beattie racked up 229 kills, 38 aces and 149 digs. She was the Scorpions’ clear first option on the attack in the fall as she led them en route to a 2A Central region championship and a quarterfinal appearance in the Arizona Interscholastic Association’s 2A State Championships. Beattie was rewarded for her monster season with an appearance on the 2A All-Conference 2nd Team.

She’d played with the same teammates at Sedona since middle school. Head coach John Parks noted that during her practices as a seventh grader he could see the potential in her game. She can reach tremendous heights with her impressive jumping ability and paired her 5-foot-11 frame with an eruptive and explosive spike. When Beattie left her feet, the whole gym knew that ball ricocheting off her palm wasn’t going to be returned.

It wasn’t until her first year as a varsity starter when Beattie knew her volleyball future could extend past high school.

“It was my sophomore year when I realized [my talent],” she said. “When my junior year took off, I was like ‘I want to do this forever.’”

Talent alone doesn’t produce NCAA athletes. Volleyball is a high-pressure sport. Many games can come down to tight scores at the end of sets, needing to produce multiple successful points consecutively in order to stay alive in the match.

Beattie thrived in those moments, and that’s what made her different.

“The thing that always goes through my mind, whether we’re tied, or the other team is up by one and we got to catch up to them, I kind of just think to myself, ‘I’m not going to let anything touch the ground,’” she said. “In those moments you might just kind of want to lay back and let the other team have that one set, but in tight moments like that my mindset is like … I want to take that set.”

That’s the player that the Seawolves of Alaska Anchorage is getting in the fall. A player that, no matter the odds or the situation, will have the frame of mind to accomplish her one goal in that moment, preventing that ball from touching the ground. Beattie prides herself on her coachability, something Parks echoed, and that’s a trait Beattie exudes on the court. She knows where the ball needs to go on every single point.

Beattie’s future in sports might even last past the four years of Division II ball. She’ll major in kinesiology, which she fell in love with after taking a sports medicine class at Sedona Red Rock High School. But the maturation in Beattie extends past her athletic career.

She realizes that college — as in life — is more about the journey than the destination. She’s unsure of what particular career path she’ll have, like most her age. But she knows that the path from the small-town life as a volleyball star in Sedona to the unique, life-altering experience in Anchorage, Alaska, is going to be a heck of a journey.

“I’ll get to see the Northern Lights, just on random days probably,” Beattie said. “I just get to see that. You don’t get to see that here.”