Kyra Holt first followed her friends onto the volleyball court in eighth grade.

Now the WSU freshman outside hitter finds herself collecting awards in college, from an MVP honor in her first collegiate tournament to being Pac-12 Freshman of the Week.

Holt plays to win matches, not awards. In fact, she didn’t know she could win awards when she started playing.

“I didn’t even know that there could be an MVP or an all-tournament (team),” she said. “I just tried to win the tournament, win every single game.”

But volleyball wasn’t always Holt’s focus. For a time, she followed in her father’s footsteps and concentrated on basketball while simply continuing volleyball to have fun.

Holt’s father, Howard, played basketball at UC Riverside and then continued his career playing professionally in Malta.

“Well there was one point that I was really into basketball because my dad, he played overseas and stuff,” Holt said. “So I was super into basketball and I was going to do volleyball just for fun.”

She continued to participate in both sports until one day, too much physical activity, not enough to food or drink and high heat made Holt pass out on the court during volleyball practice.

“My dad was like, ‘I don’t want this to happen again so you need to choose a sport.’ I chose volleyball,” she said.

It has been all volleyball ever since for Holt, who said she received her first attention from colleges during her freshman year of high school.

The first letter came from UCLA. The recruiting process quickly became overwhelming because she wasn’t sure what to do, she said.

“I would get these interests and I wouldn’t really respond to that many because I didn’t know, ‘Do I respond? Do I fill out the questionnaire thing?’ I didn’t know,” she said. “So I kind of just left (the letters) there and I would just pick one randomly like, ‘Oh I’ll just call Burdette (Greeny).’ I called a couple other clubs but they didn’t answer, and Burdette was the only one that answered.”

But maybe calling Burdette Greeny, Cougar assistant volleyball coach, wasn’t all that random. Holt’s club coach in high school was Jen Canevari Agresti, who played volleyball at WSU from 1995-97 with current Cougar Head Coach Jen Greeny.

“I don’t think it was completely random,” Burdette said. “She knew about Washington State coming from Jen Agresti and I think she was intrigued. So Kyra came up here, she loved it and she committed I think a week after she came up and visited.”

One of the major draws for Kyra was the opportunity to play in the Pac-12, one of the best volleyball conferences in the nation.

“If we ever lose a kid who doesn’t want to be in the Pac-12, we know they’re not meant to be in this conference,” Burdette said. “We think we need the highest-caliber competitive kids that are meant to be in this conference.”

Holt and the Cougars are aiming for a national championship this year.

“We have a long way to go, but if we keep putting in 100 percent every practice we can (win the National Championship),” she said.