Braden River and State College of Florida alum Brittany Jaco's record-setting year nets All-American honors

BRADENTON -- Brittany Jaco's volleyball career has been about adjustments.

In high school at Braden River, Jaco slotted in at outside hitter.

In junior college at State College of Florida, Jaco was moved to the defensive specialist position, since she stood 5-foot-7.

Then she transferred to Barry University to complete her four-year college career, and played libero.

To cope with the position shuffling, Jaco went the beach route during her summer between high school and junior college to work on her passing and digging skills. She beat out teammate JanHea Beisner for the starting role at SCF, caught the attention of Barry during a match against the Bucs in her sophomore season and fell in love with the Miami-based program during her visit.

Recently, that four-year career wrapped up, but not before she earned Division II All-American honors.

Jaco was selected for the third team after piling up 599 digs, which is a program record, and also was an All-South region first teamer and All-Conference first teamer.

"I didn't think that beating the digging record would lead to all those awards," Jaco said.

Getting the digs record wasn't an easy task. Jaco said she kept counting them down throughout the sea

son to see how many she needed per match.

And there was a big chance the record wasn't going to happen.

The Bucs were down two sets to Florida Southern, and Jaco was four digs shy of the record. Barry came back to win the third set, before falling 3-1 and having its season end. But due to winning that pivotal third set, Jaco was given the opportunity to shatter the digging mark by 10.

"It was taking forever," Jaco said. "I remember everyone was going, 'One more dig, one more dig and you've got it.' I'd get a dig and just wasn't good enough to get the right height. And I just remember being like, 'Oh my gosh, am I going to get it? This is the last set. If we lose, I am done. I'm not going to beat it. We won the set, which was good and we went to a fourth set."

To tally the digging record, Jaco set a personal goal of being Barry's athlete of the year. So she asked her coaches last spring about the record, since digging the ball was her main priority as a libero.

"They handed me a paper and it said the digging record was 589, so I was like, 'OK, I'm going to try and beat this,'" Jaco said.

Now Jaco, who also plays beach volleyball, will set her sights on post-college volleyball.

She said she'll either attempt for her Master's degree, which allows for beach volleyball time, or she'll pursue indoor volleyball at the professional level in Europe.

"If professional volleyball contacts me first, I'll take it," Jaco said.

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Braden River and State College of Florida alum Brittany Jaco's record-setting year nets All-American honors ."