It appears there is good progress on that front.

A 6-foot junior at Oakland-Craig, Helzer has drawn volleyball interest from a handful of Division I schools. The pandemic has slowed her decision-making process. The NCAA’s suspension of in-person recruiting though at least September hasn’t allowed her to visit schools.

The ever-changing recruiting rules have led, ironically, to something Helzer is used to. “It has been a wild ride,” she said.

Helzer is the first in her family to go through the Division I recruiting process. She says it can get hectic, especially when a person is as busy as she is.

“I’m done taking notes on the colleges, and I think it has helped keep me organized,” she said. “My parents have helped me a little bit, but I feel like I’m doing a lot of that on my own.”

The pandemic has led to the cancellation of a lot of her weekend volleyball and rodeo travel over the spring and summer.

“It was hard to go to the rodeos, especially because where I’m from there are not very many,” she said.

High school rodeo in Iowa is generally in the later part of the spring and fall, but this year the spring season was canceled.

There would’ve been more rodeo competitions for Helzer this summer, but a late July trip to Orlando for the AAU volleyball nationals outweighed rodeo qualifier competitions.