BAYFIELD

Five years of hard work paid off for Katy Funkhouser.

She started playing club volleyball in seventh grade, and after completing her senior season at Bayfield High School last fall, she will continue her career at Clarendon College in Texas.

“It’s small and everywhere I wanted to be,” said Funkhouser, daughter of Madonna and Tod Funkhouser. “It just fit; it’s perfect.”

Clarendon is a community college with 1,500 students in Clarendon, Texas.

The Bulldogs compete in the National Junior College Athletics Association’s Division I Western Junior College Athletics Association.

Clarendon’s head coach, Melvin Balogh, saw Funkhouser compete at a club tournament in Denver and asked if she would be interested in playing for the Bulldogs.

“I had not known anything about it, but when I did go to visit, I played with the girls, and it was awesome,” Funkhouser said. “It already felt like a team.”

Funkhouser was a second-team All-Intermountain League selection last season, when she had 54 aces, 154 digs and 145 kills.

She also competes for the Four Corners Volleyball Club.

“Katy’s opportunity is born from her hard work, strictly,” said Terene Foutz, Funkhouser’s coach at BHS and the FCVB. “She’s really worked hard to forge a path for herself.”

Funkhouser would like to continue her volleyball career beyond her planned two years at Clarendon, but she’s happy to become a Bulldog.

“I plan to stay there for two years, and hopefully that’ll get some more doors to open up for me in the volleyball world,” she said. “If it doesn’t, then two years is exactly what I want.”

kgrabowski@durangoherald.com