Isabelle Hoppe.....here is a really nice article about one of Pitt's latest recruits in the PG.....I had trouble linking it in this message......so I did a cut and paste.
Colin Beazley
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Oct 16, 2024
Angela Seman remembers the little girl, 7 or 8 years old, running around Pitt volleyball practice, shagging balls and watching Seman and the rest of the Panthers. The kid, the daughter of a Pitt administrator, would hang out occasionally, join them on a road trip, maybe grab dinner once or twice.
Seman didn’t know the little girl would soon pick up knee pads and set the ball against a wall, over and over, inspired by what she saw Seman and the rest of the team do.
Seman didn’t know she’d coach that kid one day, and that that kid, as a freshman, would be a key part of a WPIAL championship-winning squad, be part of a U.S. youth national team and win the Americans a gold medal in Honduras, or eventually commit to play at Pitt.
She didn’t know that kid would grow into arguably the best volleyball recruit Western Pennsylvania has ever produced. “She was just like your typical, average, 7- or 8-year-old,” Seman said.
But Isabelle Hoppe, only a junior at Pine-Richland, has been anything but typical or average since.
Hoppe’s volleyball journey started slightly before those players in that gym; she’d played a bit of club, but nothing too serious. But it took off with that team.
“I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” she says now.
The Panthers were friendly and welcoming to that little girl, letting her hang out when they didn’t have to. No one could imagine what they’d sparked.
It didn’t take long for Hoppe to become addicted to volleyball — for three reasons. For one, Hoppe’s innately competitive, a classic middle child who doesn’t hesitate to use a draw-four card on her younger sister in Uno or bend the rules to beat her older brother at cribbage. Plus winning is fun, and it didn’t take long to start.
But she also found that her position, setter, used the strategic part of her brain.
“You're essentially the quarterback of the team,” Hoppe said.
Setting doesn’t have the power of being an outside hitter, nor the speed of being a libero, yet Hoppe’s the middleman, taking the ball and calculating in milliseconds whom to pass to based on the opponent’s positioning. It’s the hitters who get the glory, but Hoppe’s the mastermind. She loves it, and she loves making her hitters look good.
Her dad, Chris, is one of three deputy athletic directors at Pitt. He serves as the administrator for three teams: men’s basketball, swim and dive, and volleyball. When he was hired in 2017, because his daughter already liked volleyball, Chris figured regular immersion with the Pitt team would be like “fantasy camp” for her. There was no scheme to turn her into a phenom. He just thought it would be fun.
One of the trips he got to take his daughter on was a game at Louisville in 2021, a matchup of two of the top-four teams in the country. The Hoppes watched Pitt play well — and lose anyway. Their front row seat of the game became a firsthand view of tears, frustration and angst.
But through those experiences, both in games and practices, Hoppe started seeing the game as a college player. Despite being relatively new to the sport, she’d try to emulate the Pitt players just because that’s what she’d seen, regardless of whether she was physically strong enough to do it.
Yet more often than not, she could.
Seman was hired as Pine-Richland’s coach when Hoppe was in eighth grade. It didn’t take long to realize something special was happening in the middle school games.
“She would just single handedly beat teams,” Seman said, noting it’s especially difficult to do as a setter. “Our eighth grade team at that time, who are my juniors now, would just easily beat everybody. But just watching her move and seeing the maturity on the court that she had as an eighth grader — that not many eighth graders have — I knew she was going to be something special.”
By the time she got to high school, there were whispers about the prospect.
“Oh, you’re getting Isabelle Hoppe, you’re gonna be studs,” Seman heard.
Hoppe moved into the starting lineup as a freshman, then helped the team to Pine-Richland’s first WPIAL championship in 12 years.
She was also beginning her international career. In 2021, USA volleyball began scouting for its National Team Development Program, picking Hoppe among 70 of the nation’s top volleyball players for four seasonal training sessions. Suddenly, the Pine-Richland student was playing with athletes from volleyball hotspots like California and Texas. She expected to struggle. Instead, she found that she saw the game faster than most. She played like she’d learned from Pitt.
In May, national team coaches picked her for a 20 man training camp for the U19 Continental Championship, held in July in Honduras. Forty percent of the roster would only practice, not making the travel squad. USA Volleyball sent out a 30-minute warning ahead of the final roster announcement, then a five-minute warning. Hoppe waited for the good news: she made the team.
“We were so happy,” Hoppe said. She found out she was one of two setters, joining one of her closest friends on the team. “We were so excited. We have videos of us jumping up and down, hugging. It's the craziest feeling in the world.”
Hoppe was the only Pennsylvanian on a squad that featured three Texans, two Floridians, and two Californians. She was also one of just three players born in 2008.
“This is not normal for Pittsburgh volleyball,” Chris Hoppe said. The region has had some volleyball talent, but no national team representation. “None of this is normal.”
Hoppe and the rest of the American team traveled to Honduras, where they’d compete as one of eight North American teams. They played in a bare-bones gym, drinking only bottled water and the same meal every day to stay healthy. The locals treated them like celebrities, watching the games and asking for signed shirts. The Americans played like they were famous, winning all five matches.
Hoppe stood on the podium in Central America, 1,800 miles from home, as a gold medal was put around her neck.
“It’s one of the coolest feelings ever,” Hoppe said.
Western Pennsylvania has had top football recruits, top basketball players, top wrestlers. Yet Hoppe is probably the best volleyball recruit the region has ever seen. She’s the top setter in the nation in the 2026 class, per PrepVolleyball, and the No. 3 prospect in the country.
And, still just a high school junior, she’s just getting started.
Hoppe’s currently nursing a back injury that presumably ends her high school season, but she’ll have a chance at a second WPIAL championship next fall. Before that, she could be on the U19 national team again, at the World Championships in Croatia in July, and possibly even on the U21 team, too, which competes in Indonesia in August.
Yet her volleyball journey is headed back to the gym where it began. As a top prospect, Hoppe could have chosen any volleyball program in the country. She didn’t go far, committing on June 18, three days after coaches could officially offer recruits, to her top-ranked hometown Panthers.
Hoppe learned volleyball from watching Pitt play. Soon, she’ll play with them.
“I never even thought this would be an option for me,” Hoppe said. “... It'll be cool to be able to actually be one of the people that I've seen on the floor for years and years.”
Making it sweeter is the success Pitt has had recently. It wasn’t the juggernaut program it is now when Hoppe was watching practice. Games were sparsely attended. Now, the Panthers have a packed gym, three consecutive Final Four appearances, and the top ranking in the land.
“She's just been front row for really all of Pitt volleyball’s success in the last five years,” Chris Hoppe said. “Literally, front row. ... [And now] she has the physical ability to actually impact that. The parallel narrative is really wild.”
Her high school coach is thrilled, too. Seman had a similar journey, going from Seneca Valley to Pitt as part of coach Dan Fisher’s first recruiting class. Hoppe pulled her aside before a summer practice, saying she had a secret, before sharing she’d follow the same path.
“I was jumping up and down, so excited I wanted to cry,” Seman said. “I knew that she made the right decision on her part, [and it’s] completely her decision.”
But it’s Isabelle Hoppe who’s happiest. It’s more than a year away, so maybe it hasn’t set in yet, but she knows she’ll be back in that gym soon.
“I always said that everything [about Pitt] was perfect. I just didn't know if I wanted something different [or] a new experience,” Hoppe said. “But I think what it came down to at the end of the day was I have been around this program for so long. Why would I go anywhere else when everything I have and need and love is right here?”
First Published: October 16, 2024, 2:27 p.m.
Updated: October 17, 2024, 5:37 a.m.
