Iron Mountain senior Annslee Runsat (22) focuses on knocking down a free-throw attempt during the 2022 girls varsity basketball season. The Mountaineer was a standout not only basketball but also in volleyball and softball, earning recognition for her efforts in all three sports. (Dennis Mansfield/Daily News photo)

IRON MOUNTAIN — From the outside, recently graduated Iron Mountain student-athlete standout Annslee Runsat is a tough read.

The three-sport star was a middle hitter in volleyball who loved the back row. In basketball she preferred the interior, but proved to be quite comfortable being the team’s pressbreaker. She said that she was “a big girl, but I’m not really a big girl.”

And personality-wise, the 18-year-old is shy at times but with an engaging personality and an endearing, almost sheepish laugh. At the same time, Runsat is also a steely competitor, who Iron Mountain volleyball coach Jeanne Newberry said had a “look” when she got frustrated or angry.

What is clear, however, is the impact Runsat had on Iron Mountain girls sports the last four years. In volleyball, she was a three-time first team all-conference selection and was selected as the Mid Peninsula Conference player of the year for the 2021 season. Additionally, she helped lead the Mountaineers to a 2021 district championship.

In basketball, Runsat was a two-time all-conference first-teamer and was given honorable mention on the Division 3 all-U.P. basketball team in 2020 and 2021.

Mountaineer Annslee Runsat jokes with her teammates while warming up for softball practice earlier this spring. Runsat was a first-team West Pac Conference player this season. (Dennis Mansfield/Daily News photo)

And in softball, Runsat was a first-team West Pac Conference player this season. Though the honor was well earned, Runsat laughed and she was “kind of shocked on the softball one.”

For opposing coaches, Runsat was the Iron Mountain female athlete who most stood out the last few years.

“She was the best athlete we had,” Newberry said. “What really was amazing was her ability to make the game look slow. She had an extended reach and could elongate her body.

“You just don’t see those kind of athletes (often).”

Runsat’s athletic journey actually started at North Dickinson County, where her family lived until she was in sixth grade. Her mother Alissa coached Nordic volleyball at several levels, including as the varsity head coach. Runsat points to her mother’s influence as key to her future athletic endeavors.

“My mom was a very good athlete when she was younger and she coached volleyball when I was really young at North Dickinson,” Annslee said. “And she would always have me practice basketball. She’s the one that pushed me, and I would say my mom was the biggest person I looked up to.”

That doesn’t mean that her father Knute and siblings Gavin, Reighan and Zeke didn’t have a hand in her competitiveness.

“With three other siblings, everything was a competition,” Runsat said. “Everything was games. And my parents are very competitive, too.”

While volleyball became her choice of sports, Runsat said basketball was her first love. She said volleyball wasn’t pushed in elementary and middle school, while basketball was.

And a tall player who had skills and was mobile was sure to be a big hit when she arrived in Iron Mountain.

“It wasn’t hard to fit in,” Runsat said of her start in Iron Mountain. “I used to play baseball with some of the boys, so I knew them and I wasn’t nervous coming in because I knew them and they were like, ‘We’ll show you how it goes.'”

Runsat actually caught the eye of then-varsity girls basketball coach Katelynn Grenier when she was in eighth grade.

“My older sister was a player and I was a manager so I would just hop into their scrimmages,” Runsat said. “So I think she already had her eyes on me.”

So did Newberry.

“I watched her in seventh and eight grade, and then her freshman year,” the long-time Mountaineer volleyball coach said. “When I brought her up as a sophomore, I was like, ‘Why didn’t I bring her up earlier?’

While admittedly cautious when she first joins a group, Runsat has never cowered on the court or the field. Her inner confidence, added to her skill and size, led her to feel comfortable in joining teams with older players.”

“I think I proved myself to the older girls, so it wasn’t very hard to get in with them and be a team (together),” she said.

Runsat said she set goals for herself early on, one of which was to make first-team all conference in both the Mid Pen and the West Pac conferences. Though she accomplished that, Runsat seems a bit ambivalent about her athletic achievements wearing the black-and-gold.

“I think I exceeded a lot of my goals and I was very happy with getting player of the year in the Mid Pen,” Runsat said.

But when asked if she fulfilled her potential as a high school athlete, Runsat’s answer is quick and firm.

“Definitely not. I probably could have pushed myself more in all of the sports, but maybe that’s my competitive side talking.”

Runsat was most honored as a volleyball player and will continue to play the game at Division 3 Lakeland University in Plymouth, Wisconsin near Sheboygan. But her performances in basketball caught the eye of onlookers as well, and she was awarded the first Richard Olds Basketball Dedication Scholarship at Iron Mountain this spring.

Runsat, a 3.97 student in high school, also received a boatload of academic scholarships, including the Lakeland University Presidential Merit Scholarship worth $72,000.

She said she is undecided about her field of study, but said she is considering exercise science.

With her departure to Lakeland, Runsat will be extremely difficult to replace within Iron Mountain girls athletics, not only for her size and athletic ability but for her leadership qualities.

“She doesn’t have a big voice, but she would always come in with a very instructive attitude,” Newberry said. “She would make everyone around her aware of where we would go that day.”

“I definitely am a little more shy, but when I got on the court, I was more like, ‘OK, we’ve got to get this done, this done, and this done,'” Runsat added.

And that attitude is a coaches’ dream.

“She was someone who I could put into every position,” Newberry said. “She was reliable and very instinctive. She saw the whole picture. It was an absolute privilege and honor to coach her.”

Jerry DeRoche can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 247, or at jderoche@ironmountaindailynews.com.