Maddi Foutz and Kirstie Hillyer gave Bayfield volleyball fans a taste of what Division I college volleyball looks like during their high school careers. Now, the two girls will bring their college team back to their hometown to give the Four Corners a full serving.

The Colorado State University Rams will play a spring match against Northern Arizona University on April 7 at Bayfield High School.

Limited tickets went on sale this week for the exhibition.

CSU head coach Tom Hilbert has held a camp in Bayfield since the 2008-09 school year. Now, Hilbert will bring one of the top programs in the country to the town that has produced two of his current players.

“I think it’s going to be great, and I’m happy for Kirstie and Maddi,” Hilbert said Thursday in a phone interview with The Durango Herald. “When we got Maddi committed here, we first got the concept of doing this. That part of Colorado has been good to us, and we want to pay it back.”

Hilbert had mentioned the possibility of getting a game to Hillyer as early as when she committed to the Rams in 2014.

“I brushed it off thinking it wouldn’t happen, and here we are,” Hillyer said. “I was kind of shocked when I heard. I wasn’t really sure what to quite think. I looked at Maddi and smiled and said, ‘OK, let’s do this.’

“I think it will be beyond anything I’ve seen at Bayfield. We’ve got a pretty big-name team with big-name girls coming to a small town. I think it will be the biggest crowd ever at Bayfield for volleyball.”

Hillyer, a 6-foot-6 middle blocker, will enter her fourth year at CSU as a redshirt junior. She is coming off two seasons as an All-Mountain West Conference selection and was the 2016 Mountain West Conference Newcomer of the Year.

She has led CSU for two consecutive seasons in blocks with 1.46 per set, and she ranked No. 17 in the country in blocks in 2017. She also was second on the team with a .383 hitting percentage, which ranked No. 33 in the nation.

Foutz is coming off her true freshman season. The 5-foot-5 defensive specialist played in 32 of the team’s 33 matches and made 12 starts. She finished with 1.59 digs per set.

“Kirstie is becoming a dominant player, not just in the Mountain West but in the country,” Hilbert said.

“You add Maddi’s zeal and how much intensity she brings every day, and that’s special, too.”

Foutz’s family played a big role in getting the match to Bayfield, as her mother, Terene, was the longtime coach of the Wolverines before she retired after the 2016 season so she could follow Maddi’s college career.

Foutz, who is still the director of the Four Corners Volleyball Club, lined up the match for the same weekend as the “Diggin’ It in Durango” tournament that features 100 teams from throughout the southwest region.

“It means a lot for me and my family, and especially my mom,” Maddi Foutz said. “She has supported me from Day 1, and I think that this game will be me playing for her and our home, where we come from.”

Hilbert said it is rare that the team play a spring game at a high school, especially one so far from Fort Collins, but it isn’t unprecedented. He said picking Bayfield was easy because of what he has witnessed during all the camps he has held at BHS.

“The kids just love to play,” he said. “That’s the difference in these satellite camps we do there and other parts of the state. A lot of the time, players look like they’re forced to be there. The kids down there, they love to play, and that’s exciting to me.”

Maddi Foutz was always one of those girls excited to play, and she’s more excited than she has ever been for a match on her hometown court.

“I’m so thankful I have a coach willing to come back to Bayfield to support me and Kirstie and where we’re from,” she said. “Coming back to a small town and letting the girls see where we’re from is exciting. I’m really excited to show Bayfield how big of a world volleyball can be and how Kirstie and I can come from such a small town to a top-25 program.”

Maddi Foutz, who was a key member of the Bayfield “Rowdy Crowd” student section for the school’s many sports, said she hopes to see a mix of club volleyball teams from around the region as well as the faces she always saw supporting her from the stands.

She also hopes to see the “Rowdy Crowd” in top form. The Rams are used to spirited crowd support, as they ranked 12th in the nation in attendance with more than 2,500 fans per match.

“I hope a lot of the high school and the Rowdy Crowd comes out,” she said. “It will be fun for them to see that.”

CSU went 29-3 overall and 17-1 in the Mountain West last season and reached the NCAA Tournament for the 23rd time in program history. The Rams won the Mountain West for the eighth time in the last nine years and 14th time overall.

Northern Arizona went 13-15 last season and 9-7 in the Big Sky Conference.

Tickets will cost $6 for the public and $5 for groups of 10 or more. Limited tickets are available and are expected to sell out. There will be no tickets sold at the door.

“We needed to find someone who could get there in a driving trip the way the rules work in the offseason; people are not allowed to fly,” Hilbert said.

“We’re traveling a lot farther than they are. We talked to (the University of New Mexico), but they couldn’t make it work, so Northern Arizona was next closest.

“These exhibition games are fun to do. Nebraska does them every year, and we’ve done them before, and I’m excited to do it in Bayfield.”

jlivingston@durangoherald.com

If you go

Who:

Colorado State University vs. Northern Arizona University

What:

NCAA exhibition volleyball

When:

7 p.m. Saturday, April 7

Where:

Bayfield High School gymnasium

Tickets:

http://bit.ly/2ExzwTT

More info:

Doors will open at 6 p.m.