Bulthuis calls debut ‘most nervous I’ve ever been’
When Tinley Park’s Zach Bulthuis attended a tryout to play club for Ultimate on a summer team in 2016, he was asked what position he played.
“I said, ‘I’m a hitter,’” he recalled. “I had no idea what the positions were. I didn’t know what was going on.”
The volleyball novice had dedicated much of his athletic career to hockey while dabbling in other sports. Since that tryout, the 6-foot-7 Bulthuis has become an NCAA Division III powerhouse in hitting and blocking.
The Chicago Christian graduate, who’s now starring in college as a middle hitter at Carthage, earned the CCIW Defensive Player of the Year during his freshman season in 2020.
He has also made a mark off the court as well as a member of the CCIW StudentAthlete Advisory Committee Executive Board. This week, he was appointed as an NCAA Student Athlete Advisory Committee representative from the CCIW.
From then to now, it has been a unique ride:
■ In 2017, he was learning the game on the 16 Ultimate Black team.
■ In 2018, he was promoted to 17 Ultimate Gold and spent a lot of time on the bench until the postseason, eventually developing into a hitting and blocking machine for the team that finished second in the Open Division of the USA Volleyball Boys Junior National Championships. That’s where scouts for D-III national power Carthage saw him and recruited him.
■ In 2019, he played in his first varsity match at Chicago Christian.
The Knights did not have a boys volleyball team until his senior season, and he was just one of two players with club experience. Still, coached by Deb Lindemulder, Chicago Christian had a 17-11 record in its inaugural season.
Then, there was his abbreviated college debut, with Carthage changing its head coach and conference and finishing 12-3 before the season was shut down by the NCAA due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Bulthuis found the first year on the college level to be a challenge.
“My club team was very good and nationally ranked,” he said. “I played at a very high level. But going to college, you feel like you are back on the bottom of the totem pole. You restart completely.
“You are with a whole new group of guys who you never played with before, and they have all played together for years. My first game was the most nervous I’ve ever been.”
Nerves aside, he had a stellar .573 hitting percentage. His average of 1.23 blocks per game was astounding. Because he played just 58% of the team’s games, it was not enough for him to be listed among the NCAA leaders.
But those numbers would have been first in the nation in hitting percentage — second was .444 — and second in blocks per game.
“Being named first team all-conference and the defensive player of the year is an incredible feat for a freshman to accomplish,” Carthage coach JW Kieckhefer said. “It is even more impressive when you learn that Zach got a late start to the game of volleyball compared to others around him.
“His ability to use his height and athleticism to close blocks and be available as a hitter is what separates him from a lot of his peers at his position.”
Carthage, which also has freshman setter Gene McNulty from Marist, is ranked No. 9 in the National Volleyball Association and American Volleyball Coaches Association preseason polls.
Carthage is scheduled to open the season Feb. 2 at Lakeland.
Bulthuis can’t wait.
“Last year, I didn’t know many players,” he said. “But now, they are not just my teammates. They are like my brothers.”