This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Woods Cross • In the world of Madeline Vigil, the bar has been raised pretty high by her two older brothers.

No one, however, is expecting her, for obvious reasons, to go to the same place — no matter how hard she hits.

Maddi Vigil has been hitting hard and often since she joined the Fremont volleyball team, and she is now in her senior season with the Silver Wolves. She's the middle child of five kids for Jamie and Kayla Vigil. Her older two brothers, Zach and Nick, are linebackers in the NFL.

"Having two brothers in the NFL isn't really a common thing, so I get it a lot," Maddi Vigil said. "I think it's amazing. I don't mind talking about it; it doesn't bug me.

"It gives me pressure, but it just motivates me to be a better person and a better athlete," she added. "It's such a high level and I want to be that kind of an athlete."

Zach Vigil is with the Miami Dolphins, but currently on the reserve/non-injury list to deal with a back injury. Nick Vigil, meanwhile, is a rookie with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Maddi missed Fremont's volleyball win Thursday night when she and her family flew to Cincinnati to see Nick play. It turns out that the Silver Wolves didn't need her in a three-set sweep.

But that's not usually the case.

Vigil is the team's leading attacker, as she was last year. She had 277 kills in 2015 and 191 so far this season as Fremont is in a four-way battle with Weber, Sky View and Northridge for the Region 1 championship.

"We're having fun and working hard, and it's been a really good experience for me so far," Vigil said of her senior season.

"She's phenomenal, an incredible athlete. Maddi is a very explosive player," Fremont coach Shauna Haney said.

According to Kayla Vigil, Maddi's mother, volleyball came after a lengthy dalliance in tumbling, where Maddi once received a fourth-place national finish in that activity.

When she turned 13 though, Maddi turned from tumbling to the court — but not the basketball court.

"They sure wanted her for that, though," Kayla Vigil said.

While Maddi is following in older brother Nick's footsteps by going to Fremont High School, Zach attended Clearfield High. Both older brothers eventually went on to standout careers at Utah State.

Zach was the Mountain West Conference's Defensive Player of the Year his senior season in 2014 with the Aggies. In 2015, Nick was selected as an All-MWC player before leaving Utah State after his junior season.

But Maddi Vigil isn't sure that Utah State is in the cards for her. Her parents say that she's been offered scholarships at smaller, out-of-state colleges (Montana State, for instance) and that Vigil ultimately may not take the Aggies up on an offer to walk on with the volleyball program.

"I'm looking at some colleges right now — Utah State and some other schools," Vigil said. "I want a scholarship, that's definitely a factor for me. Utah State is a great school, and my brothers went there and it was great. It just depends on what's a great school for me."

In the meantime, Maddi Vigil enjoys being the younger sister of the older boys playing on Sundays — sometimes.

"I think she has good moments and bad moments. She struggles with it, because they do get a lot of attention," father Jamie Vigil said. "Where she's such a very good volleyball player, and our family is very competitive, at times she feels like she's being overlooked or overshadowed." —

About Maddi Vigil

• Totaled 277 kills in 2015 and has 191 so far this season for the Fremont volleyball team.

• The younger sister of former Utah State and now-NFL players Nick and Zach Vigil.

• Holds a scholarship offer from Montana State.