Gullo Athlete of the Month -- Klein Oak's Landry Bullock

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LANDRY BULLOCK

KLEIN OAK VOLLEYBALL

At the age of 14, Klein Oak’s Landry Bullock had never played in a competitive volleyball match. After joining a summer league with a group of friends four years ago and falling in love with the sport, the standout senior is now looking to leave her mark on Houston volleyball.

As a six-foot outsider hitter and returning all-district performer for the Panthers, Bullock has quickly adapted her skills to the rigors of both club and high school volleyball.

“It was nerve-racking and shocking when I first began playing,” Bullock recalls, “because the only prior experience that I had was just the basics that I had learned in middle school. The entire learning experience was great.”

As she has developed and refined her game, Bullock admits that she can’t have enough volleyball in her system now, and her busy offseason schedule supports her claim.

“Over the summer I played a lot of volleyball. I took private lessons, and my club team went to the Junior Olympics in Ohio,” she says. “Every time someone was playing volleyball during the summer, I was there.”

With a relatively young and inexperienced rotation last fall, Klein Oak stumbled to a 17-19 record overall, including a first-round playoff exit to Kingwood in straight-sets. This season, Klein Oak is back in large part due to the play of Bullock, who is averaging nearly 15 kills and three blocks per match.

“Last year we only had one returning varsity player so everyone was new and getting familiar with the speed of the game,” she says. “This year we return almost the entire team and everyone is prepared for the competition ahead of us.”

While she is set to play volleyball next fall at Southeastern Louisiana University (SELU), she still has individual and team goals to fulfil before graduating.

“We’re all hard workers and we all want to go far in the playoffs,” she says. “I want to be the go-to girl on the court and I want to prove to the doubters that Klein Oak volleyball didn’t go anywhere.”