The spring semester of the 2013-14 school year was right around the corner, and while Monique Harris’s classmates back in Clinton, Iowa were getting ready to take on their last leg of high school, it was time for her to move on.

An opportunity had presented itself — one to leave high school early and enroll at Iowa State, where the Under Armour Honorable Mention All-American had committed to play volleyball. She grabbed that chance, and never looked back.

“I wasn’t into high school very much,” Harris said. “I was ready to leave and this chance was available … It ended up being a really big help getting ahead in school and learning how to be away from home.”

Getting to Ames a semester early, practicing with the team and competing in the spring exhibition season gave Harris, a setter, a leg up on the other players new to the team. However, it didn’t immediately pay off.

When Aug. 29 rolled around and the Cyclones were slated to face then-No. 3 Stanford, Harris found herself playing the role of backup to Suzanne Horner, a sophomore who had just transferred in from Mississippi State.

Harris saw action in just one set of the ISU loss that day, tallying five assists.

Horner held on to the job as the primary setter for the Cyclones, but she knew that Harris had a chance to be something special.

“I feel like she’s just one of the most competitive people on the team,” Horner said. “She was and still is always working hard, always working to make herself better and the people around her better.”

Then on Nov. 2, staring in the face of the team’s first Big 12 home loss of the year, ISU coach Christy Johnson-Lynch decided to change things up.

The Cyclones were down 2-1 to the visiting Texas Longhorns, who were ranked No. 5 in the nation at the time, and Johnson-Lynch needed a way to reinvigorate her team’s offense to make a push at staying alive in the match.

She and her staff elected to employ a 6-2 rotation in place of the traditional 5-1, meaning two setters would always be on the court at opposite sides.

Enter Monique Harris.

Though the Cyclones went on to drop that set and the match, Johnson-Lynch saw an opportunity to use that system going forward and make Harris an integral part of the ISU offense.

“She just has a nice presence about her,” Johnson-Lynch said. “She’s athletic so she can get to a lot of stuff – a lot of junk balls or balls that barely get up off the floor. She can dive in and she’s so quick. She can make things happen.”

In the two matches since using the 6-2 rotation full-time, the ISU volleyball team has yet to lose even a set, sweeping then-No. 22 Kansas State at Hilton Coliseum and taking the brooms to West Virginia for the Cyclones’ first Big 12 road win of the year.

After seeing the court in 17 of Iowa State’s first 20 matches of the season, Harris had totaled 43 assists in 45 sets played. In the six sets against Kansas State and West Virginia, Harris has amassed 43 more assists — 7.5 times as many assists per set than before.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Harris said. “I’m still just going in and doing whatever I have to do to help my team win. I feel like I bring a lot of energy to the court when I’m out there.”

Harris stepping into a bigger role has also diminished the touches she has gotten in the previous two matches. Horner, however, has taken the adjustment in stride, never focusing on why her duties are lessened, but rather staying focused on what is best for the team.

“I think she [Harris] brings good energy and she’s a great defensive player,” Horner said. “Setting-wise, she’s really good at spreading the ball around and her decision making. It’s been really great that we’ve been able to find a system that really works to all of our abilities.”

Though Harris has popped off the stat sheet as of late, the volleyball novice may not even notice how instrumental she has been to facilitating the ISU attack. Such is the life of a setter, however, where the most attention is drawn when a mistake is made, rather than during exceptional distribution or situational awareness on the court.

At the end of the day, Harris is just simply playing her position on the hardwood. What perhaps is most impressive to Johnson-Lynch is how well Harris is making that happen.

“She’s really done a nice job,” Johnson-Lynch said. “She’s organized, she puts up really nice sets…You wouldn’t know she’s a freshman. You wouldn’t know she hasn’t set most of the year.”

Harris’ rise to success in one of the NCAA’s premiere volleyball conferences might appear sudden and maybe even unexpected, but it’s actually been a deliberate process — one that began when she took the initiative by enrolling at Iowa State last winter and was brought to fruition when Johnson-Lynch took a chance on a new offensive scheme late in the season.

In the end, it has all paid off.

“It’s pretty cool to play at this high level and to play at the position I’ve always played,” Harris said. “It’s been an honor. It really has.”