OREM — Hailee Garcia looked around for a moment and then smiled. She knew what she’d just done, but it also seemed she was the only one inside the UCCU Center who didn’t see the big banners positioned in the stands in anticipation of her breaking a state volleyball record.

Early in the second set of Syracuse High’s volleyball state tournament match against Farmington, Garcia broke the state’s all-time record for assists, logging her 3,178th in that moment, which puts her alone in first place in the record books.

“For me, it’s more of a — I can thank my team for it kind of a thing because an assist is another teammate gets a kill, you now? I wouldn’t be where I am without the teammates I had at Syracuse,” Garcia said.

Syracuse fans loudly cheered and unfurled two banners in the stands, one reading “3,178 career assists, Hailee Garcia #15” and the other reading “UHSAA All-Time Career Assists Record Holder.”

A timeout was called, the Titans players started cheering on the court, Garcia high-fived her coach, Corrie Vigil, and sat down on the bench where her teammates applauded her.

Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner Fans unfurl banners after Syracuse High senior volleyball setter Hailee Garcia broke the state’s all-time volleyball assists record Thursday in a 6A state tournament second-round match against Farmington on Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021 at Utah Valley University.

“It was just kind of awesome to see everybody cheering for me, my dad with the banners, it was just an awesome moment,” Garcia said.

Garcia entered the state tournament with 3,165 career assists, needing 12 to tie the all-time record of 3,177 set by Ciara Parker from Snow Canyon High (St. George) and 13 to break the mark.

She got 29 against the Phoenix in a three-set sweep, putting her at 3,194 for her career after the second-round match and with a couple games left to add to the total. For three-plus seasons, Garcia’s been the focal point of Syracuse’s hitting, a stretch that’s seen the Titans win the Region 1 championship twice (2018 and 2021).

Not only does she have the 3,194 career assists, but there are all the other set attempts that didn’t end in a kill over the years that she thought about.

“It’s insane to me,” said Garcia, who’s committed to play college volleyball at St. Mary’s in the West Coast Conference.

Once she got to 3,000 assists earlier this year, becoming only the second player in state history to do so, she and her dad did the math on what she needed in the final games to get the record. She knew she was going to get the record at some point this season.

Technically speaking, banners of the 10-foot variety or any variety aren’t allowed at state tournaments, so arena and UHSAA staff pretty quickly walked over to tell the Syracuse fans to put the banners away, which the fans did.

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