South Central Iowa Female Athlete of the Year: Four-sport star wows and awes

The impact Paige McElfish made on Pride of Iowa and southwest Iowa athletics was immediate and can be traced back to the first moments she stepped onto the playing surface of her choosing.

McElfish was the Wolverines’ starting pitcher and one of the best hitters in her first varsity action as an eighth-grade softball player.

She homered in her first varsity game and picked up the win in the circle.

Plenty of good moments came over the next few years on her ascension to becoming as good of an athlete as any Pride of Iowa athlete in recent years.

The recent Nodaway Valley graduate, the daughter of Bill and Deb McElfish of Greenfield, was a four-sport star in a time of increasing athletic specialization, has been awarded the South Central Iowa Female Athlete of the Year Award, as determined by the sports staff of the Creston News Advertiser and Osceola Sentinel-Tribune.

“I know there’s a lot of good athletes in the area and not only the area, but the conference, it feels good to win this award,” McElfish said.

Her first year of varsity action, McElfish started in softball, basketball and ran track. By sophomore year, she was a starter in volleyball, and played each of the four sports at a high level.

The only time she didn’t play a sport is when she sat out track her junior year while healing an injury.

She holds numerous school records in basketball and softball, the latter of which she was an all-state performer.

Each of McElfish’s coaches recalls seeing her compete at a high level in middle school.

As a middle schooler, when the boys eighth-grade basketball team was short for a weekend tournament, McElfish joined and held her own.

Brett Welsch, McElfish’s track coach recalled seeing her make boys upset at recess because they were taken aback by getting beat by a girl.

If it was a sport, McElfish was pushing herself to the test.

“She just likes to compete. Doesn’t matter if it’s volleyball, basketball or softball,” Welsch said.

Basketball season came her freshman year and McElfish immediately shined. Averaging a double-double with 15.5 points per game and 10.7 rebounds per game quickly placed her among the upper echelon of players in the Pride of Iowa.

The Wolverines were a steady power each season under McElfish’s leadership in a talented senior classs and won 18 games each of her final three seasons.

McElfish’s game evolved each season through her senior season, as she added ball-handling and better outside shooting to her repertoire.

One thing that continued to stick through her career, especially as a senior, was McElfish’s rebounding ability. Her strength helped her early on in that capacity.

“There’s an art to rebounding and she just has a nose to the ball,” Nodaway Valley coach Tom Thompson said. “That showed from freshman year on. She had a knack for being in the right place.”

Her 12.9 rebounds per game as a senior was tops in Class 2A. She did this while standing all of 5 feet, 7 inches tall.

“When the ball goes up, I just track it where it’s going to hit off the rim,” McElfish said. “Tom (Thompson) wouldn’t like this, but I don’t really box out. I just go and get it.”

As senior year came around, her coaches saw her demand more of her teammates while trying to distribute responsibilities where necessary, as was most evident on the basketball court where McElfish worked to get future Wolverine leaders into more scoring chances.

“Especially my senior year I started to pass the ball a lot more and sometimes Tom wasn’t too happy with that,” McElfish said. “But it’s good that people like Annie and Addie got to touch the ball because now they’re going to be the ones who touch the ball as much as Josie and I did.”

That tenacious tendency toward testing her abilities and pushing others in every sport made McElfish a coachs’ dream athlete to instruct.

“She has a desire to win. She has that competitive drive,” Thompson said. “It rings through. She couldn’t always play 32 minutes a game, but if you asked her to, she would.”

That drive made McElfish a leader in every sport she took up. She owned the attention of her peers and opponents alike from a young age, and took on the resulting responsibilities. Some of the Wolverines’ older players in several sports looked to her for leadership.

By the time her senior season rolled around, her leadership was unquestioned in every sport.

Even first-year volleyball coach Allison Bjork saw it quickly upon arrival, noting that she took to playing several different spots, including libero as a defensive specialist.

“She could have played any spot on the court, honestly, and that’s very rare for a volleyball player,” Bjork said.

Per Bjork, McElfish showcased an, at times, goofy demeanor, but got serious when necessary. But her play, just like in her stronger sports of softball and basketball, spoke loudest.

“She took on that captain role just like a senior should,” Bjork added. “Mostly it was her on the court the role.”

At no point did McElfish’s drive make her unpleasant to be around as a teammate, or away from sports.

Every one of her coaches glowed in their praise of the outgoing senior’s personality.

“Paige is good to everybody. She’s not going to talk down to anybody,” Nodaway Valley softball coach Ray Stewart said. “If a little kid wanted to do something, she’d be the first one there to do it, to help her.”

Believe it or not, after all of this time as a four-sport athlete, McElfish is a bit tired of sports. She looks forward to adjusting to the next stage of her life as a student at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs without participating in sports.

She’s not the type to be quickly forgotten in Greenfield, even while competiting at the same time as 2016 South Central Iowa Male Athlete of the Year Jackson Lamb.

“Jackson was very known in the area. He won very many awards. It’s a good feeling to sit up there with him,” McEflish said.

Her coaches are more than aware of how difficult it will be to account for her abscence.

With a freshman year of college without varsity athletics being her course of action, she certainly owes nothing to anyone after putting in years of work.

And, while coaches around the area may currently rejoice at a future of not having to go up against McElfish-led Nodaway Valley teams, none would be disappointed to see the success she sustains in her next step.