Former Capital High great Ashley Ames returned to her home state last weekend, as a member of the Northern Arizona University volleyball team.

Ames, a 5-foot-11 redshirt freshman, helped the Lady Lumberjacks to a 3-0 victory over Montana State on Saturday, after the team lost to the University of Montana on Friday, 3-0.

Against MSU, she posted four kills and three blocks. She had four kills and 1½ blocks versus the Lady Griz. Northern Arizona is currently 5-10 overall and 2-4 in the Big Sky Conference entering Thursday's match against Eastern Washington in Flagstaff, Ariz.

The previous weekend, Ames had her best match to date for NAU, in a 3-1 loss to Northern Colorado. She produced a career-high of 10 kills, while hitting for .381 for the match. Another top performance came against Sacramento State, when she pounded seven kills and blocked two shots.

A middle blocker, Ames is second on the team with a .236 hitting percentage and leads the team in blocks with 29 (0.91 per set.)

At Capital High, in 2007-08, she became only the third female in school history to achieve a "Triple Crown," earning all-state honors in volleyball, basketball and softball in the same year. She was also named a team MVP in all three sports.

In volleyball, she helped CHS to back-to-back fifth-place finishes at state her junior and senior years. She was selected honorable mention all-state in 2007, while setting modern-day team records of 11 blocks in a match and 110 blocks for the season. She played in the Senior State All-Star volleyball game in Billings, as well.

"Ash" was a first team all-stater in basketball, having performed 11 double-double games (double figures in points and rebounds) during the 2007-08 season. On the fastpitch diamond, she set Capital's season batting record, with a .478 average, and was chosen all-state at both pitcher and designated hitter.

Ames was part of two state runner-up teams with the Bruin ladies, in basketball and softball.

Ashley, who is the daughter of Greg and Sue Ames, is majoring in business marketing at Northern Arizona. As a freshman last year, she received NAU's Golden Eagle Scholar Athlete Award.

Curt Synness: 449-2150 or curt52s@brensnan.net