By Pat Jenkins The Dispatch Kaelyn Voss seems as clear about her future as she is about her passion for sports. Voss, who graduated this month from Eatonville High School with academic and athletic honors, will attend Pacific Lutheran University, where she plans to play basketball for the Lutes and double-major in criminal justice and psychology. She wants to eventually become a lawyer, preferably a prosecutor, and some day preside over high-profile cases as a judge. Don't be surprised if she takes the same tenacity and drive into courtrooms that she displayed while becoming a rare four-year, three-sport letterwinner at Eatonville in basketball, soccer and fastpitch. It's believed she's the first female to do it at the school in about 50 years. In basketball, she said, "I have to out-think opponents. My dad taught me some crafty moves to score with because at my size (a little over 5 feet tall), I couldn't outmuscle other girls." That works. During the 2013-14 season, Voss, a point guard, was picked to play in two state all-star games (the Washington State Girls Basketball Coaches Association All- State 1A-2A game in Seattle and the 18th annual Washington/North Idaho All-State games in Spokane and was named Most Valuable Player of the Nisqually League. Voss also made a mark in soccer, earning honorable mention in the 1A All-State selections after the 2013 season. She was a midfielder for the Cruisers. Teamwork and her love of competition are what Voss gets out of sports, which she has played since her elementary school days and in Eatonville Youth Sports Association leagues. "It's so great coming out of practice and high-fiving my teammates for a job well-done," she related. In the classroom, Voss was among this year's top graduates at Eatonville with a 3.75 grade point average. She also attended Pierce College-Puyallup as a Running Start student, earning a two-year Associate Arts degree to go with her high school diploma. Voss, who lives in Graham, said she lives her life by two beliefs: "Family first" (her parents, Ed and Denise, and brother Zak, 21) and "God always has a plan." The latter outlook stems partly from the death of a friend in a car accident in Voss' freshman year of high school. Struggling to understand the loss of a young life, Voss was inspired by her mother's advice that everything is part of a plan by God. "Now I find the light in the dark," Voss said. Like many new high school graduates, Voss knows adjustments and changes in life are coming quickly. "For the last four years," she said, "every year has been defined by the seasons of the sports I played. Soccer, basketball, fastpitch - repeat. So I'm a little nervous moving on to something else. But it's exciting, too." -รก
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