Dresden, Ohio, hosted a signing for Tri-Valley’s own Eva Dittmar who was filling out the final paperwork to attend the University of South Alabama on a four-year full-ride scholarship to play volleyball for the Jaguars.
Eva decided her goals early on in Freshman year, she played both basketball and volleyball and earned a varsity letter in both, but gave up basketball after her first year to concentrate solely on volleyball, and it paid off. She soon became an All-Star player not only for Tri-Valley but at a MVL and state level. In 2021 she made the honorable mention list for First Team MVL, and then came back to make the ranks of First Team MVL in 2022, and 2023, this year also being named the MVL Offensive Player of the Year.
Dittmar was named First Team All-District from her sophomore year on and also received the honor of being named the District Player of the Year in her 2023 senior season. Her other accolades include making the 3rd Team All-State Division I in 2023, and she is one of 20 Division I girls chosen in the state to play in the 2023 All-Star Match at Wooster on Sunday, November 19th.
When asked about choosing a college that is so far away, Eva’s mother Amber Dittmar had this to say, “She actually wasn’t intimidated by being far away which speaks a lot to her courage and her ability to stand on her own two feet. One of her first statements was that she didn’t want to go to college in Ohio if she had this opportunity she wanted to live in a different part of the country and experience what that had to offer. We’re happy that she is realizing a dream that she stated from the beginning. It was a lot of hard work and she identified this as her goal freshman year in high school, she said I want to play Division 1 volleyball at a scholarship level and so doors were opened and hard work paid off, and lots of prayer, lots of faith and understanding that this is where God is leading her.”
The full-ride from South Alabama was not her only choice, Eva actually had eight full-ride offers from various Colleges throughout the country including, Akron University (Ohio), Seton Hall University (New Jersey), George Mason University (Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C.), Duquesne (Pennsylvania), Wofford College (South Carolina), Old Dominion (Norfolk, Virginia), and Middle Tennessee State as well as non-scholarship offers from Princeton and Cornell.
“We are thrilled because she had 8 full-ride offers at different schools and she chose this one because of the coaching staff and the girls down there were just a wonderful fit at the visit. It’s a great campus and she wanted to be in the warmth close to the beach, so she is like an hour from the beach, we’re thrilled, it’s a great situation,” stated Eva’s father Ben Dittmar.
Each of the scholarship offers took some deliberation and Eva and her parents started college visits in January and didn’t finish their final visit until May of this year. From there, Eva had to narrow down her choices and basically make a short list of colleges she was most interested in finally arriving at South Alabama as her chosen destination.
“I will be living on campus, I was definitely scared at first because it is close to 14 hours, but I am very comfortable with the girls and very comfortable with the coaching staff and I just thought it was the right fit so I am definitely all good with that. The school visits were all good visits, in volleyball they’re very big on trying to make it feel like a family, and sometimes I’d just feel a piece missing here or there, whether it was they didn’t have an academic program I was looking for, or the team chemistry didn’t feel quite right, but at South everything just clicked for me,” stated Dittmar.
Eva will be majoring in Elementary Education, a path she chose after volunteering in her mom’s classroom at Adamsville Elementary and also while volunteering with her sister Ingrid at Camp Invention this past summer. Dittmar took four years of Spanish while at Tri-Valley and could possibly be looking to teach English as a second language, a field that has a lot of opportunities.
Over the years to hone her craft Eva not only played regular season volleyball for Tri-Valley, but also spent her off-season playing club volleyball at the Elite Volleyball Training Center, in Plain City Ohio from 2021 on and was named 2022 JVA Watchlist for the class of 2024, 2022 AVCA Phenom list for the class of 2024, and 2023 AVCA All American Watchlist for the class of 2024.
For her final season at Tri-Valley Eva finished 3rd in Division I in the state with kills for 2023 at 455 kills. She also finished 20th in Division I in the state with 65 aces. Her total career stats for high school are 1314 kills, 134 blocks, 406 digs, and 134 aces. Impressive!
