Carrollwood Day School Volleyball Player Lydia Chinchar Voted 2024 ITG Next Florida Female Athlete of the Year
Coming off yet another stellar season early on in her high school career, Carrollwood Day School volleyball player Lydia Chinchar has been voted the ITG Next Florida 2024 Female Athlete of the Year.
To receive the honor, Chinchar received an overwhelming 68.62% of possible votes over three additional finalists: Robinson flag football and volleyball player Haidyn Spano, Montverde Academy basketball player Jaloni Cambridge, and Melbourne softball player Jasmine Francik.
When referring to Chinchar’s 2023 season on the volleyball court, you will be hard-pressed to find a better year overall across the state from any player, let alone a freshman.
Carrollwood Day went 31-2 to win the Class 3A state title this past season, and Chinchar stuffed the stat sheet for the Lady Patriots by leading the group in numerous statistical categories. She finished the season with a final stat line of 573 kills, 37 aces, 67 blocks, 266 digs, five assists, 384 returns, a kill average of 51.4%, and a hit average of 42.8%.
“Lydia just has this unbelievable presence about her on the court, and her team will play for her,” said Douglas Chinchar, who is the Carrollwood Day head volleyball coach and Lydia’s father. “They know that everything is OK. As we’re playing the schedule we’re playing, we opened up with the Nike Tournament of Champions, and Lydia had to go up against some big-time kids. Lydia just does her business, and it’s just another day.
“She sees things in slow motion. I’ll talk to her sometimes on what she thinks, and she’ll tell me in a huge sentence exactly what she saw. That’s just the ability to see the game so slow, and that’s a gift. She has that gift. As she’s grown, everything kind of grew accordingly with it. Everything kind of came together, and what I tell people is when she was born, God said, ‘You are going to be a volleyball player.’”
Lydia Chinchar received additional honors this past season, including being named the Florida MaxPreps Player of the Year and a MaxPreps Freshman All-American.
She had double-digit kills in all but three matchups during the season, including 11 matchups with more than 20 kills. Arguably the greatest of these performances came when it mattered most. Chinchar amassed a season-high 37 kills with six blocks, 13 digs, and 24 returns in a 3-1 win over Westminster Christian in the Class 3A state title match.
This season carried over what has now been a phenomenal two years for Chinchar on the volleyball court. She amassed over 1,000 kills combined across her last two seasons at Carrollwood Day as an eighth-grader and freshman.
“I think her biggest attribute on the court is her poise,” Douglas Chinchar said. “You would never know that this kid is who she is by just the way she handles herself. When the ball goes up in the air, it’s her time to go. She never disrespects the opponent and always cheers on her teammates.
“She can do anything she wants with the ball. You think you have her, and you think, ‘OK, we’ve got her,’ and then it all of a sudden goes someplace else, and then you’re thinking, ‘How did that happen?’”
It seems that Lydia Chinchar’s athletic ability runs in the family.
“She grew up on the bench,” Douglas Chinchar said. “My wife played for the University of South Florida; I played at Ohio State University; and her sister, Naomi, is going to West Point to play volleyball. She just soaked it all up, and somehow, someway, it stuck.
“She can do things with the ball that college kids can’t do, and she’s doing it at 15 years old.”
Looking ahead, Lydia Chinchar is certainly no longer an unknown product on the Florida high school volleyball scene, something that her father recognizes as well.
“We’re making sure for one that she doesn’t rest on her laurels after a good freshman year,” Douglas Chinchar said. “We’re working on bigger, stronger, faster, and more elite because there are no secrets now. Everybody knows who she is. National High School Freshman of the Year, five-star, Player of the Year, All-American. There is no hiding. The expectation is that Lydia is going to be Lydia.”
Carrollwood Day is expected to be among Florida’s top high school volleyball teams once again next season.
“Next year we bring everyone back except for Naomi,” Douglas Chinchar said of the 2024 Lady Patriots. “We’re going to go to the Vegas tournament that brings in the Top 25 teams in the country. We’ll be at the tournament of champions, and we run a pretty good tournament with over 100 teams. It should be a fun season.”
Congratulations once again to Carrollwood Day School volleyball player Lydia Chinchar, the ITG Next Florida 2024 Female Athlete of the Year.
