School: Pennridge
Volleyball
Favorite athlete: None really
Favorite team: None
Favorite memory competing in sports: Playing in the Pennridge/Exeter tiebreaker game in the State Tournament pool play to advance to the semifinals as well as our District One championship match
Music on iPod: Classic Rock (Led Zeppelin, Boston, Bon Jovi, etc.)
Future plans: RPI, Navy ROTC, double major in Electrical and Nuclear Engineering
Words to live by: ‘Without bad days, the good days wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying.’
One goal before turning 30: Drive cross country on a motorcycle
One thing people don’t know about me: I love playing the guitar, learning my favorite songs, and also building my own guitar effects.
Dave Childs knew Jake Braun was something special the moment he stepped onto the court with the varsity as a sophomore.
“As a sophomore, he was the smartest kid I had ever coached,” the Pennridge volleyball coach said. “He’s very smart when it comes to the game.
“He knows what’s going to happen before it happens, and he’s able to get in position. That’s really what sets him apart from most players. He’s smarter than everybody.”
And it is Braun’s ability to read the game that makes him such an effective libero for a Ram squad that captured both league and district titles last year and advanced to the state semifinals. Braun is able to make pinpoint passes to the setter off opposing team’s kill attempts, and he makes it look easy.
“We’ve had good hitters the last few years, and we have good hitters now, but they don’t get the ball if the ball is not passed to the setter,” Childs said. “It’s the thing that goes unnoticed a lot, but now I think people are starting to realize that he’s a good player. I think he’s one of the best in the area, and people are starting to see that now.”
Braun, who grew up playing baseball, got his first taste of volleyball playing in gym class.
“They make you play volleyball in gym every year, and it’s really actually quite awful,” he said.
Still, when ninth grade rolled around and Braun was looking for a sport to occupy his time, he settled on volleyball.
“I knew I wanted to play a sport – I just didn’t know what,” he said. “I went through all the sports they had, and I didn’t want to do anything like running for track, so I picked volleyball.
“My brother (John) used to play, so I decided to give it a try.”
Braun, by his own admission, got off to a slow start.
“I guess that’s with anything really,” he said. “It didn’t start off the greatest. You have to get the fundamentals down. I had to build up to the skill level I am at now.”
Braun was used mainly as a hitter for his freshman squad.
“There were a lot of kids that were about the same skill level, and we just let them play,” Childs said.
One year later, Braun went from the net to the back row where he was a defensive specialist for the varsity.
“He kind of surprised us early on,” Childs said. “He ended up on varsity, and by the end of the season, you knew he was going to be a special player.”
Braun has not disappointed. He is the lone captain of a Ram squad that – despite the loss to graduation of all-state hitters Zech States and Austin Jacoby and all-district hitter Ryan Chinnici – is off to a 5-0 start and is ranked ninth in the state.
“A lot of teams still really don’t know who we are, which is really surprising,” Braun said. “I enjoy being the underdog more than having people say, ‘Oh, look out for Pennridge.’ I like surprising teams.
“It’s just nice to know we can come out and still compete with the high level teams.”
Childs knows his team is in good hands with Braun as its leader.
“I have never only named one captain, but he’s the only one I’ve named captain this year,” the Rams’ coach said. “He plays hard all the time and sets an example for everyone else in that regard.
“He knows when to have fun, and he knows when to buckle down and get serious. He’s our emotional leader, and he’s very enthusiastic. He’s the perfect guy you’d want as your captain this year.”
Braun has been the Rams’ defensive libero the last two seasons.
“It’s kind of like the unsung hero because everybody watches the guy hitting the ball straight down, but you have to know where that balls started from,” Braun said. “That just makes me feel good.
“It may not make me the star, but that’s fine by me. To see somebody kill a ball and know – I started that, that’s fine with me. I like the position I play. I have no yearning to move. I enjoy helping the team any way I can.”
According to Childs, Braun is a natural at the position.
“He’s a smart kid, but he’s an athlete,” the Rams’ coach said. “He would be a good hitter too if I needed him to hit, and he has set for me before.
“He can do a lot of things on the court that you have to be athletic to do. What sets him apart is how smart he is.”
Braun has worked long and hard at his sport. The dust had not settled on last year’s loss in the state semifinals when Braun was playing in an outdoor summer league.
“I did a lot of pick-up games with friends from the volleyball team,” he said. “I played in a couple of leagues.
“Whenever I could, I’d just get some guys together, and we’d go to somebody’s house and set up a net outside, and we would just play volleyball.”
Fall and winter are also filled with volleyball, and in the winter, Braun and his teammates played AAU volleyball with Indian Valley Volleyball Club.
“That really gets the team chemistry going,” he said.
Childs smiles when he looks back at the past offseason.
“It’s been funny because they’ve been asking for more gym time,” he said. “Jake called me every day for a week asking for more gym time.”
“I felt like this year we took a big hit after losing Zech and Austin,” Braun explained. “I knew we were going to have to work as hard as we could. I just wanted to get started as soon as possible to make our team better.”
The growth of the Pennridge volleyball program has been monumental during Braun’s high school years.
When he was a freshman, the varsity advanced to the second round of the district playoffs.
“The next year I thought, “We’re losing so many seniors. We’re not going to be any good this year,’” Braun recalled. “I talked to Dave in the preseason, and he said, ‘I think you’re wrong, Jake. I think we’re going to be good.’”
The Rams were better than good, advancing to the district title game for the first time in school history and earning a berth in states when Braun was a sophomore.
“I said, ‘Okay, Dave, there’s no way we’re going to be any good the year after that,’” Braun said. “We had lost so many seniors again, but Dave said, ‘Nope, we’re going to be good again, Jake.’ It was like, ‘Alright, whatever you say.’ Low and behold, we ended up finishing third in the state. That’s fine by me.”
So what exactly did Childs have to say about the current season?
“Once again, I was skeptical about this year, but Dave’s still optimistic, and I’m starting to see it,” Braun said. “We just beat Central York, and they’re ranked number one in the state, so it’s really good to know we can contend with those teams as long as we play well.”
As for the future, it doesn’t look as though collegiate volleyball will be part of Braun’s plans. He narrowed his college choices down to Drexel and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is leaning toward RPI where he will double major in nuclear and electrical engineering.
“If I like both of them, I’ll keep going,” he said. “If not, I’ll choose one.”
An excellent student, Braun is a member of the National Honor Society as well as the Executive Council of the Class of 2011. He has been enrolled in AP classes since his sophomore year when he took an AP computer programming class.
“I definitely try to keep up a difficult academic agenda just because you always have to prepare yourself,” he said. “I had fun with AP Physics. AP Chem was a challenge. I find learning fun if I can find something I enjoy learning about.”
Social studies had never been Braun’s forte, but he opted to challenge himself this year by taking AP Government and Politics.
“I’m doing alright,” he said. “I’m scratching by with an A.”
It is that drive to excel that has set Braun apart in both the classroom and on the volleyball court where he is the perfect leader for a young Ram squad with high expectations.
