TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - When opposite court the Florida High Seminoles, you don't want to be on the receiving end of outside hitter Nylah Demps.
"Try and break the floor!" she laughed as she explained her thoughts when going up for an attack. "That's what I've always been taught."
"This was the first year I saw Nylah hit a ball, where I legitimately was concerned," said Florida High head coach Greg Garrett. "It was more of instead of being like, that's amazing! It was more like, are they okay?"
All opponents survived, but Nylah's done some serious damage on the court- racking up over 1100 kills in her Varsity career. The crazy thing? That strong hand, almost wasn't utilized, as Nylah's first love, was soccer.
"After the sixth grade, I was like 'mom, I don't want to play anymore, I want to play volleyball,'" she remembered. "She was like 'what? That's crazy! All you have ever known in soccer!' All of a sudden, one of my friend's was like, hey Nylah, come play volleyball! You're tall! Why not?"
The rest is history, and six years after giving up soccer, Nylah's set to early enroll at the University of Tampa to play collegiate volleyball, and will graduate high school with a 3.88 GPA.
"Any free time we have, we're always in books," she said. "You'll see me and my teammates, anytime we're not playing in the gym or at club, we're sitting down studying doing our homework. Time management plays a really big part in it!"
"She's going to have to play with the big dogs," said Coach Garrett. "There's going to be a couple of girls that are going to be able to hit as hard as her and do what she does, but that doesn't diminish that she's going to immediately come in and perform as the highest level. Now it's just a matter of doing it with her next team."
A team that's glad that Nylah's on the same side of the net that they are.
