Mia Santos, the 5-foot-9 outside hitter for the Harvester Bees volleyball team, strives to excel academically and physically. Santos has been recognized as a Dallas Athletic Conference Player of the Week three times and as the National Player of Week on one occasion. On the court, she has 783 kills overall for her career at Eastfield with 119 strikes in conference. Santos averages 2.00 aces per set, 17.11 digs per set and 1.17 blocks per set in conference and has a 16-game-win streak. She’s also doing well in the classroom, with a 3.40 GPA. It is clear that Santos plans to rack up even more kills, aces and blocks, all while achieving high grades in class.
Q: You are a student and player for the volleyball team at Eastfield. What’s something that people would not know about you?
A: I’m a hard worker. I have the dedication to switch on and off between being an athlete and then being a student. It takes a whole different part of your brain to be able to manage both of those sides. Nobody sees the hard work that you put in. Everybody sees that you do well academically; it takes a lot though.
Q: How long has it been since you started playing at Eastfield? How do you feel about the season currently?
A: It’s been a year and a half. I transferred from University of Mary Hardin-Baylor because I wanted to move back home. So I came here right when they were going into their conference games. I think that we are getting to know each other and building that balance, and we built it good enough in the preseason that we could implement it into our everyday volleyball field now.
Q: Was there anything different that stood out to you this pre-season?
A: We’ve done so much chemistry wise and, as a team, that’s really important to us, and we have a bright future ahead for the rest of our season.
Q: How do you feel on game day?
A: Super excited. Yeah, such an adrenaline high. Like being in the gym is just so exciting. It’’s my element. Honestly, I tell everybody that, but it’’s my element. I love being here, and it just brings a different excitement and lets it go to them.
Q: If you could sum up the whole month in one word, what would it be?
A: I would sum it up with growth. Because I think that even though we have the national championship title, it’s not handed to us, and a lot of people don’t see the hard work and dedication that we put in every single day to get where we are. So I think that this month has been a month of trial and error and doing what you have to through the day for the future.