Daily Pilot High School Female Athlete of the Week: CdM’s Humphreys has the ‘want’ coaches look for

Corona del Mar High girls’ volleyball coach Steve Astor has great appreciation for the symbolism of senior night.

It is an emotional night, one that sets in motion both a parting of the ways, but also a time for reflection.

On Monday night, Astor stepped back and took in the moment, which was special for too many reasons to count. It is almost time to say goodbye to a group of kids that he first met while running his first summer camp after being hired at CdM.

They were in middle school then, and thinking back to that time feeds right into the narrative of senior night. For Astor, the journey to senior night needs both a macro and micro perspective.

The predominant view is to picture how far the kids have come, from freshmen to seniors. In addition, Astor takes into consideration the growth that his players have shown from the start of the current season to now.

There are eight seniors on the CdM roster right now, five of which start. In the middle of it is the setter, Ashley Humphreys. She has ensured that CdM (19-6), which plays host to Tesoro (14-11) in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs on Tuesday, has clicked offensively throughout the year.

When Astor reflects on his time with Humphreys, specifically, he finds that not much has changed. She always possessed a superior work ethic.

“I don’t remember a practice where she didn’t work hard,” Astor said. “It sounds simple, but that’s not easy to say with a lot of kids.

“She also had a really advanced knowledge of the game at an early age. I think she had seen a lot of volleyball growing up, and that helped her a lot.”

Growing up, Humphreys could not get away from the game. Her older sister, Kelsey, was a star player in her own right. After graduating from CdM, she attended Stanford, where she won a national championship as a senior last year.

Her mother Wendy was a four-time All-American setter with the Cardinal from 1984-87. She also played for the women’s national team right out of college.

Add the fact that her father Brad played football for the Cardinal, Stanford was clearly the natural choice for Humphreys to compete in college, right? Wrong.

Humphreys was bent on being different. From the time she was very little, she had claimed another Pac-12 institution as her dream school.

“I just like the big tradition of the school,” said Humphreys, who committed to USC at the end of her sophomore year. “It’s great at sports and [academics]. I don’t really know why I had always said it was my dream school … before I even knew what [USC] was, I always said that.

“Once they started to show some interest in me, I pretty much stopped talking to every other school and just put all of my focus into that. I was sold.”

Beyond her immediate family, Humphreys’ aunt, Kari Rush, and her cousin, Mackenzi Campbell, both played collegiately. Rush, her mom’s sister, was another relative to set for Stanford. Campbell attended Newport Harbor before going on to compete for Montana State and UC Irvine.

Humphreys’ desire to be her own person revealed itself much earlier than the recruiting process. She might not have played volleyball at all if not for some added incentive.

“In seventh grade, my dad bribed me to play by getting me a new phone, so I started playing volleyball,” Humphreys said. “I instantly liked it, so I stopped playing soccer, and I’ve been playing ever since.”

No one is happier that Humphreys decided to conform than Astor. He spotted the traits of a true competitor during her freshman year, and it earned her a call up to varsity for the playoffs.

Astor wanted to know what he had coming down the pike, as then-senior setter Paige Migliori would be headed to Pepperdine.

“She had the ‘want’ to be good,” Astor said of what he hoped Humphreys would deliver on when she was first brought up to varsity. “A lot of kids say they want to be good and say they want to win. Ashley is kind of the next level, where she wants to win, but what she does, her actions speak a lot louder than her want in words.

“Competitive-wise, she just hates losing. I think that’s kind of a dying thing in a lot of this generation. Kids are not really that competitive.”

At each stage of her high school career, Humphreys has excelled. In assessing her growth for this season alone, Astor says his senior setter has delivered in spades.

“I’ve talked a lot about what true competitiveness means and what that looks like,” he said. “Ashley is that. You can see how much she wants it. She’s done a great job this year of balancing that with how to be a leader and still be competitive, which is not easy.”

This season, Humphreys has produced 881 assists, 176 digs, 83 kills, 54 service aces and 37 blocks. She has averaged 11.2 assists per set played.

The assists are the most Humphreys has had in a season, as this is the first year that CdM has run a 5-1 offense with Astor at the helm. In every other season, the Sea Kings ran a 6-2.

Humphreys handed out 46 assists in the Sea Kings’ 25-14, 23-25, 25-17, 25-8 win over Woodbridge on Monday. The win completed a second undefeated Pacific Coast League campaign in Humphreys’ three seasons as a starter.

CdM took fourth place at the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions last weekend. Humphreys notched 137 assists over 12 sets, an average of 11.4 per set against four quality opponents. The opposition included San Diego Torrey Pines, an Open Division semifinalist in the CIF State Southern California Regional last year.

Opposite Kendall Kipp and outside hitter Christina Davenport have been great options for Humphreys to run the Sea Kings’ attack through. Humphreys is also quick to recognize those who make the second touch easy to handle.

“Raleigh [Garner] and Tia [Grippo] have been solid passers all year,” Humphreys said. “The outsides are always solid, too, but it’s really mostly those two defensive specialists that have been killing it and always getting me a good pass.”

Ashley Humphreys

Born: Aug. 10, 1999

Hometown: Newport Beach

Height: 5 feet 11

Weight: 130 pounds

Sport: Volleyball

Year: Senior

Coach: Steve Astor

Favorite food: Sushi

Favorite movie: “Divergent”

Favorite athletic moment: Competing in the Battle of the Bay rivalry against Newport Harbor. She enjoys the spectacle because it is routinely the biggest crowd the team plays in front of each season.

Week in review: Humphreys helped her team complete its second undefeated run through the Pacific Coast League in her three years as a starter. The senior setter had 46 assists in her final league match, a four-set win over Woodbridge on Monday. CdM also placed fourth in the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions last weekend.

Andrew.Turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @ProfessorTurner