Yorktown libero commits to Louisville: 'It immediately felt like home'

Chloe Ritchie wasn’t a fan of any one particular college volleyball program growing up. Her fandom was based on following the schools with Yorktown grads on the roster, like Kenzie Knuckles at Nebraska and Kylie Murr, first at Ohio State then for a year at Minnesota.

“I’ve always been up in the air,” the Yorktown junior told IndyStar on Tuesday. “So as it got closer to high school and recruiting, I was struggling to narrow it down to a few schools.”

Ritchie began attending college camps as she got older and with some help from longtime YHS coach Stephanie Bloom and her Munciana club coaches, she eventually narrowed her focus to two schools: Louisville and Wisconsin.

“The cultures that both of them have really stood out to me,” Ritchie said. “Culture is huge for me and both of theirs are amazing. And their coaching staffs are so amazing, so supportive.”

The nationally ranked libero attended camps at both schools over the past week and after giving it some additional thought, she had an idea of where she wanted to commit once the recruiting window officially opened for the Class of 2028 Monday morning.

Following calls with the coaches from Louisville and Wisconsin, Ritchie made things official and verbally committed to the Cardinals.

“It immediately felt like home,” said Ritchie, who will be the first in her family to play college volleyball. “I loved the coaching staff. They’re so easy to talk to. They’re amazing people. But I definitely just got that home feeling and especially being close — I can have my family there; I can even have people who support me at my home games, which is so cool.”

Ranked 56th nationally by PrepDig, Ritchie is one of three 2028s currently committed to Louisville and will be the program’s sixth Indiana recruit in as many years, following Martinsville’s Molly Urban (2023), Plainfield’s Ava Utterback (2024, now at UCLA), Silver Creek’s Addison Makun (2025), Zionsville’s Elli Strecker (2026) and current Westfield senior Carsyn Comer.

Ritchie didn’t have a chance to talk much with Strecker before Monday, but she played club with Comer, which “helped a lot.”

“It was funny, Carsyn would always be like, ‘I promise, I’m unbiased,’ but I knew deep down she wanted me to come to Louisville,” Ritchie laughed. “She was the most helpful throughout all of it, though, and definitely made my process easier.”

Comer was open about her recruiting experience, Ritchie said, as well as her interactions with coach Dan Meske and his staff, all of whom were “very supportive.”

“That definitely stood out to me,” she continued. “And being able to hear how her experience was recruiting-wise and everything, that seemed like something I wanted to be a part of.”

Ritchie was recruited as a libero/defensive specialist, but the most recent high school season and current club campaign mark her first at the position full-time.

The 5-7 junior was an outside hitter beginning with her 12s year on the club circuit and as a freshman at Yorktown, where 2025 Texas A&M commit Addi Applegate occupied the libero spot.

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Ritchie is certainly a capable hitter. She garnered MaxPreps freshman All-America honors after logging 185 kills, 12 blocks, 62 aces, 439 digs and 25 assists in 2024. And she was similarly brilliant wearing the different-color jersey in 2025, recording 641 digs, 41 aces, 82 assists and 20 kills, with an average of 20.6 receptions per match for the semistate runner-up Tigers.

“Being able to hit has been easy, because you have control of the game. All you can do as a libero is just pass the ball,” Ritchie said. “It’s kind of been a struggle to not be able to put a ball away and finish the point, so (I’ve been) working on being good at passing, being good at defense, whatever I can do.”

Even though she wasn’t officially at the position, it helped being able to shadow Applegate as a freshman, Ritchie continued. “Addi was a good mentor. Obviously she’s at a great program now, but she was a really good player in high school, so being right behind her in the back row was really special.”

Looking towards the season ahead, Ritchie said getting over the semistate hump and securing a spot at Gainbridge remains the goal.

“As a team, we want to get in the gym every day (and to) work hard,” she explained. “Personally, I want to grow into a leadership role. I’m not much of a talker on the court, so that’s somewhere I can really improve my game. … But getting to state, that’s one of our goals. We’re gritty. We’re not very big, but we’re gonna outwork everybody else.”

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