Century libero Erika Jossart plays an unglamorous position that produces an unglamorous volleyball statistic - digs.

"A libero is like a designated shortstop," Century coach Jeni Walsh said, giving context to Jossart's contributions.

"She goes from sideline to sideline and tries to pick up anything she can," Walsh added. "... Obviously we have tall, athletic hitters at the net and she's back there mopping it up, sprawling, diving and sliding around and willing to get dirty."

Jossart, a 5-foot-7 senior, mops up darned efficiently behind front row standouts Carli Peterson, Madi Buck and Alexis Jacobs. She won all-region honors during last year's state championship season and leads the Patriots with 441 digs in 30 matches. In addition, she shares the team lead with 47 service aces for Century, now 25-5, 10-1 in the West Region.

"You usually don't see a lot of defensive players on all-state teams," Jossart said. "... "You're pretty much all over the place covering the hitters. With the good hitters the West has, you get a lot of action in the back row."

Scrambling to prevent hits from becoming points exacts a price. "My hips, elbows and knees get pretty beat up by the end of the year," Jossart said. "... And last year, especially, I had some back trouble ... just from the quick movements and turning and diving and rolling. I was pretty beat up by the end of the year."

Thus Jossart, a three-sport athlete, had little time to heal before embarking on the basketball season. She played the point on Century's third-place basketball team and earned all-state honors as a midfielder on the fourth-place soccer team.

It was in soccer Jossart made her varsity debut, starting as a freshman for the Patriots' state championship team in 2006.

As a sophomore she was a defensive specialist on Century's fifth-place volleyball team. In the third game of the basketball season she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee. After having arthroscopic surgery on the knee, she salvaged half the soccer season as the Patriots placed third in the state.

"It really healed fast," Jossart recalled. "... I haven't even tweaked it since. I've been pretty lucky. It doesn't bother me at all except if I land right on the screw. Then it hurts for a second."

The defending state champion Patriots trail Bismarck, 12-1, by just a game in the West Region standings. Century has four regional matches, one a two-pointer, remaining to Bismarck's three.

Century's regular season finale is Nov. 5 in Dickinson, a week before the Patriots begin regional tournament play in the Queen City.

Jossart said the Patriots have a lot to accomplish in the intervening three weeks, even though they have only three losses to North Dakota teams - one to Grand Forks Red River and two to Bismarck.

"We want to win all the rest of our conference games and to out strong in Dickinson," she said. "... We want to be playing our best volleyball against Dickinson and have that carry over to the regional tournament. Then we want to play our best volleyball there and have that carry over to the state tournament."

Much of the Century team that defeated archrival Bismarck in last year's state championship match returns. Still, Jossart said she hasn't even considered the possibility of another Bismarck-Century showdown for the title this season.

"When state comes, then you think about the state title," she said.

Jossart said to get to that level the Patriots have some work to do.

"Every team experiences some inconsistency here and there throughout the season," she said. "We've had a couple of solid matches but in just about every match we'll kind of lose it and get back in it again, so it gets frustrating. ... We'll run off 10 points and then give up five. And usually when we let teams back in it it will be on our own errors."

If the Patriots can smooth out those inconsistencies, Jossart has no doubt they can play with anyone in the state. "I don't think we've played a full match the best we can all year. Even when we've played well, I don't think we've played the best we can. Hopefully, we can reach that point by tournament time."

Erika is the second Jossart to go through the CHS girls athletic department. Her older sister Brittany, also a three-sport standout, graduated in 2007 and plays basketball at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn.

Erika is following Brittany's lead in more ways than one. They play the same three sports. They're standout athletes. And they share a problem that they refuse to treat as a handicap. Like Brittany, Erika is effectively blind in one eye.

"I was born pretty much blind in my right eye. I can see light, but I don't really use it at all," Erika said.

Both girls started their athletic careers wearing goggles to protect their healthy eyes, but both discarded the eyewear along the way.

"I wore them until the seventh or eighth grade, and I didn't like them so I stopped wearing them," Erika said.

Erika said monocular vision affects her least in volleyball. "Being in the back row I'm pretty much playing forward in front of me," she said. "... I don't have to be moving my head all over the place trying to see the rest of the court or field."

The lack of binocular vision simply isn't something Erika dwells on.

"I've never really known anything else, so it hasn't really affected me too much, I don't think," she said.

Walsh said Erika brings a wealth of intangibles to the CHS athletic program along with her obvious physical skills.

"She was voted the most valuable player of the team last year ... and she was voted a team captain," Walsh said.

"She's our floor leader and in the second half of the season she's becoming much more vocal, which as a coach I appreciate very much," Walsh added. "The kids look to her when times get rough."

Walsh said Erika is a perfect example of the value of multi-sport participation.

"She's definitely a three-sport kid, and I love it," the coach said. "The more competitive kids can be, the better off they are. There absolutely is carry-over (from sport to sport). In a title match they've been there and don't freak out. ... They start to relish that feeling. It's the competitive spirit."