Jessica Rohde Serving Up Victories for RTC Volleyball & Coffee For Round Top Antiquers

Round Top-Carmine senior middle blocker Jessica Rohde is an imposing force at the net for the Cubettes volleyball team which has started district play 5-0.

She is usually among the offensive leaders for RTC and had a team-high 14 kills in a big match recently against Fayetteville.

We’re proud to honor Rohde as this week’s Fayette County Athlete of the Week.

“Jessica is the life of the party for our volleyball team. When Jessica is having a good day everyone is having a good day,” said RTC head volleyball coach Caitie Weishuhn. “It’s really fun to watch her bring that energy. She’s involved in so many different things. She’s a great wellrounded person and her roots run deep in Round Top. It’s been so great having her on this team.”

Rohde emerged as a force on the court for the Cubettes even as a freshman but really came into her own during last year’s run to the state semifinals.

“Last year we were the underdogs and that really helped us – trying to prove everyone wrong,” Rohde said. “Preseason isn’t always the easiest. We take a lot of hits. It’s the same every year and this year especially it was a really tough preseason because we try to play the harder teams to prepare. We still have a lot of hope because of what last year showed us.”

The Cubettes this season only have a 14-23-1 overall record, but have been dominating teams since district started.

Off the court Rohde has been busy too.

She’s very active in FFA and an officer in the school FCCLA (The Family, Career and Community Leaders of America) chapter and wants to be a dental hygienist after graduation.

She also works as barista See at a Round Top Cafe coffee shop. She’s still trying to catch her breath from the just completed fall antique shows there, that draw tens of thousands of shoppers.

“Being a barista is like my favorite thing ever,” Rohde said. “I get to start people’s days off right and make them a comforting drink. It energizes them and makes me really happy.”

During the antiques shows, when she wasn’t in class or on the volleyball court, she was working at the coffee shop most days after school and nine hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays.

“It was insane, but you meet a lot of cool people and they love talking to locals, and I love telling them about myself because they think it’s the greatest thing to live in Round Top,” Rohde said.

Rohde even got to meet famous actor Kevin Bacon and his daughter when they recently filmed scenes for a movie there.

“They were super nice,” she said.

And while more coffee shop work and then dental school are in Rohde’s future, there’s a finite time left in the volleyball careers of her and her fellow five seniors on the Cubettes team – and they want to make the most of it.

“I went to day care with most of these people,” Rohde said of her teammates. “I’ve known them my whole life, so it’s pretty easy to gel as a team.”