It wasn’t an accident that Maddie Forry became a volleyball player.

Her father, John, was head coach at Muhlenberg High School for 11 years and at Penn State Berks for five. Her mother, Amy, played at Exeter and at Elizabethtown College.

“I was honestly around 3 when I started playing,” Maddie said. “My dad started peppering with me out of nowhere. He loves the game as much as me.

“Starting that young helped me become smarter. It helped me gain more knowledge and understanding of the game.”

Maddie Forry, a junior at Exeter, is one of two returning All-Berks players this season, along with Wyomissing’s Emily Kowalski. Forry was a complementary player last year with a pair of all-time greats, Abby Campbell and Drew Kofke, who helped the Eagles win four straight Berks titles.

Now, Forry’s the centerpiece of a team that will be challenged again by Wilson for the Berks I and county championships.

“As a volleyball purist watching her every day at practice,” Exeter coach Scott Grove said, “it’s the little stuff that she does that sets her apart from everybody else.”

Forry says she’s 5-7 or 5-8; her coach says she’s 5-5 or 5-6. At whatever height, she doesn’t have the size of a typical outside hitter. But few players she faces know volleyball as well as she does.

“She does jump very well,” Grove said, “but her court sense and her vision are just incredible. She’s had to adapt all the time by being smaller than the opposition. She’s just learned ways to work around that.

“She’s the smartest, most knowledgeable player in the gym. She uses all of that to be a really effective attacker.”

When Forry was 11, she would participate in practice with her father’s team at Penn State Berks.

“I’d jump in and play with the college girls any time I could,” she recalled. “It was a really good experience. I was so young. Penn State Berks had a huge impact on me with volleyball.”

Grove, the longtime Exeter coach, had heard about Forry long before her first practice as a freshman two years ago.

“She started from her first match and there was never really any doubt,” he said. “She’s a volleyball lifer. I knew she was coming up through the ranks. I knew she was going to be a special player, so it wasn’t a surprise when she walked in the gym as a freshman after waiting for her a couple years.”

Forry was an all-division player as a freshman and all-county last season. After Campbell suffered a season-ending broken foot and classmate Kirstin Michael a broken fibula on the same night, Forry responded and helped Kofke and setter Jenna Gehris lead the way to the Berks crown.

Campbell was the Berks Player of the Year and the first four-time All-Berks pick.

“We were really devastated about Abby,” Forry said. “There were more sets to Drew and me. A lot of the time balls would be forced to Abby for a quick point at the end of a rally.

“We’d work the ball around. It wasn’t really a problem. We never stopped being Exeter.”

The Eagles have won six of the last eight Berks titles and 54 consecutive league matches, including four straight unbeaten seasons. They’re 78-8 overall in the last four seasons and have won 146 of their last 148 league matches.

Forry can recite all those numbers. She’s as proud of the Exeter tradition as anyone. But Wilson, with a deep and talented roster, has a chance to dethrone the Eagles.

“I’m pretty motivated by that,” she said. “A lot of people think since Drew and Abby are gone, that there’s no one else on the team, that we’re not the team to beat anymore.

“But that’s not necessarily true because there were a lot of players behind Abby and Drew who are good as well.”

Forry wants to play volleyball in college and knows that she’ll probably play libero there.

“If we played her there, Maddie would be among the best liberos in the state, without a doubt,” Grove said. “She probably has the best ball control of any player I’ve coached. She’s a great passer.

“She’s the rare volleyball player in this day and age who’s that small and still a very effective front-row player.”

Forry can do almost anything on a volleyball court, for good reason.

“The fact that my parents played and I was around volleyball all the time made me want to play,” she said. “I loved it when I started playing. I liked the idea that you move a lot and there’s a lot going on. You’re just not standing around.

“It can be complicated sometimes, which I like. It’s a lot of patience and being smart.”