CRAWFORD | How Elena Scott's All-American abandon fueled Louisville's Final Four runs

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Elena Scott became just the third Louisville player ever to be voted first-team All-American by the American Volleyball Coaches Association in typical understated fashion on Wednesday.

There were, after all, bigger goals to talk about. The team’s third Final Four berth and Thursday’s national semifinal matchup against Pittsburgh, for starters. Scott isn’t often one trotted out for press conference sessions. She’s happy for others to handle that chore.

But if you can get almost five million views on a TikTok video, as she did earlier this month, who needs press conferences?

And Scott’s play speaks for itself. Loudly. The Mercy Academy alum is now a three-time All-American and is back-to-back ACC defensive player of the year. Dani Busboom Kelly made her a libero at Louisville, and the results were stunning.

She has redefined the position in the program, which had a strong tradition at libero (a specialist who focuses on receiving serves and defending from the back row) when she arrived. Scott comes from a big volleyball family. She’s comfortable on the court. She has become more vocal on it but brings a humility that belies her accomplishments.

Busboom Kelly played a hunch in moving her from setter to libero as a freshman, but even she was blown away, saying, “Her volleyball IQ is off the charts. She grew up in the gym. Both her parents play a lot of volleyball. You can tell she knows the game and reads the game very well. That translates to a great libero. She finds a way to win, and she's got great touch."

And she touches everything.

A favorite motto: “You don’t know if you don’t go.”

Translation: “You have to go for every ball.”

Tori Dilfer, who was a first-team AVCA All-American on Louisville’s 2021 team, along with Anna Stevenson, said in a recent Floyd Street Media podcast interview with Scott that her arrival “made us all want to play defense a different way, just from watching you.”

Her abandon in pursuing – and preserving – points is something the Cardinals draw energy from. She has made the spectacular expected at Louisville in a way few athletes here have. (Think: Lamar Jackson, who in any given game had a good chance of being worth the price of admission with a single priceless play.)

Her reckless dives across the court and occasionally off it can be breathtaking, and sometimes worrisome for people like Keith Kaiser of WDRB, her uncle. When he passed along a request that she be a little less adventurous in her pursuit of the ball during a recent interview with WDRB’s Tom Lane, she would have no part of it.

“It’s my job,” Scott said. “It hurts me just as much as it probably does you to watch.”

“Elena's a phenomenal player, and we are lucky that she chose to come here and take a leap of faith and switch positions," Busboom Kelly said. "The fact that she really got to excel as a libero, be considered one of the best liberos in the country and probably one of the best players ever at the University of Louisville and one of the best players ever from the city of Louisville, it's just pretty amazing."

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