Virgen: Carolyn Bockrath passing tests

It wasn’t so much that Carolyn Bockrath needed a challenge. It was more about wanting it.

Fresh off a stellar senior year with Newport Harbor High, Bockrath went to West Point. Just before joining the Army women’s volleyball team for practices, the Newport Beach girl went through 5 1/2 weeks of boot camp this past summer.

She endured being pushed to the limits. She overcame any thoughts of quitting. Bockrath had wanted this. She wanted the test.

“It’s been a really good experience,” Bockrath said Wednesday, just before boarding a flight with her team to California from LaGuardia Airport in New York. “It’s definitely the most growth I’ve experienced in such a short amount of time.”

It’s not as if she wasn’t ready for the grueling Army training, the various trials coming at her from sunrise to sunset.

Her high school years did not go without adversity. Her mother, Melantha Sudmann, died during her junior year. It’s a topic she doesn’t really talk about, her father, Joe, said.

Bockrath and her younger brother, Ben, a senior at Harbor, were raised in a single-parent home with their father. Sudmann had battles of her own, but the separated family somehow possessed love before she died of a heart attack at 45 in February of 2013.

That was a difficult time for the Bockraths. Carolyn displayed strength, and pressed on, excelling in academics and athletics. Ben, a basketball player, is wanting to do his best. He tried football but was removed from the varsity team because of disciplinary reasons, yet he might be allowed back. It’s another lesson to learn to be applied to life, Joe says.

The father said it wasn’t always easy raising Carolyn, who has a strong-minded personality.

“She’s always been self motivated,” Joe Bockrath said. “She’s a great student. I never had to get on her to do her homework. She is a really dedicated and focused kid. She’s pretty hard to deal with, always a battle because I am just as stubborn as she is.”

Joe Bockrath recalls seeking help from a therapist and being told the reason the two argued so much because they were so much alike.

Joe Bockrath was also an athlete, a basketball player who grew up in Ohio and played at Miami of Ohio.

“She has overcome an upbringing without two parents in the house,” he says of her daughter. “Her mom did pass away. I’ve seen a lot of research of great players that have come from single-parent homes.”

Carolyn Bockrath found her sport to be volleyball. She’s a middle blocker for Army. At Newport Harbor, there haven’t been too many four-year varsity letter winners in Coach Dan Glenn’s program. Only Misty May-Treanor and April Ross come to mind and both were elite indoor before going on to great feats and Olympic stardom on the beach.

But this is not to say Carolyn will also become a beach volleyball phenom. Put it this way, she’ll pursue it if she wants to. If there’s any indication that this isn’t an ordinary Orange County girl, it’s evident in her choice to attend West Point.

Carolyn, who led the Sailors to the playoffs even though they began 3-12 last year, made a big splash in her first tournament with the Black Knights last week.

She was selected to the all-tournament team after leading Army in kills (41) and blocks (12) over the team’s four matches, in which it went 2-2 at the Hampton Inn-vitational. She was also named Army Athletic Assn. Athlete of the Week and Patriot League Volleyball Molten Rookie of the Week.

Carolyn said she was excited to earn the honors after making the transition to the team from boot camp.

“It was definitely a culture shock,” she said of her summer. “The stress, the structure, it was different. It was hard, definitely, you can tell the entire time that it was going to help you in the long run. At the time it was hard. But being at Army is already better than I hoped it would be.”

Still, she was anxious to return to Southern California. She loves her dad and brother. They all attended a team dinner in Laguna Niguel Thursday night when Ben playfully went for a piggy-back ride on Carolyn’s back, while coaches told Ben to be careful with their star player.

Carolyn played at Long Beach State Friday night and Army will play there again Saturday (11 a.m. vs. University of San Francisco and 5 p.m. vs. Campbell. On Sunday, she’ll play at UC Irvine against Cal at 11 a.m.

“I am so excited to come back home,” she said Wednesday. “It’s definitely going to be really nice to be back with everyone in Southern California.”