Simone Lee, whose verbal commitment to Penn State was announced on April 19, 2012 on the Cheese and Volleyball blog, has only been playing volleyball since the eighth grade — and according to an October 3, 2011 article by Dave Boehler in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, she only started playing then because the club program her sister Chelsea was playing for was looking for more players.

Another milestone was reached when Simone decided to forego basketball so she could concentrate on volleyball.  As her coach at Menomenee Falls, J.C. Bruns, noted in the article by Dave Boehler,  it was a tough decision for Lee:

In talking with her parents, she kind of agonized over it. She really loved basketball. I’m an advocate of playing as many sports as you can. . . . It can be done. I’m never an advocate of someone dropping a sport to play mine. But if she’s going to pick one, though, I’m glad this is the one she picked.

Judging from Simone’s volleyball performance, she appears to have made the right decision.  In 2010, she led her team in blocks and earned Highest Honerable Mention on PrepVolleyball.com’s “2010 Frosh 59 — the Best Varsity-Playing Freshmen in America.” By then she was attracting plenty of attention from college volleyball programs, including, according to Dave Boehler’s article, Marquette, Wisconsin, Florida, Auburn, Louisville and Purdue.

In 2011, after recording 539 kills and a .352 hitting percentage for Menomonee Falls, Lee was named to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s All Area Second Team (the only sophomore to be named to either of the first two teams).   According to one coach: “She’s only a sophomore but she hits higher and harder than anyone we faced.” Lee also was selected to the Greater Metro Conference first-team and was named second-team All-State by the Wisconsin Volleyball Coaches Association and by the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association.

Welcome Simone!