CONWAY, Arkansas — M.C. Parker remembers the first time she saw Avery Stephens play.
"She has a really fast arm swing and jumps really high," Parker said," and so it was awesome to see all the skills she had."
Despite being just a freshman on the Hendrix beach volleyball team, Stephens is already drawing attention from coaches as far as Ukraine.
"He DM'd me and he asked, 'how do you pass?'," she said. "And I told him, 'honestly, nobody taught me. It just happened'. Like it's kind of a natural movement and I can't really explain it, it's just the way that I adapt to everything, it just tries to come naturally because I've never had two hands."
Avery Stephens is limb different, born without her left forearm and hand.
"I don't think of myself as playing with one arm," she said. "In my head, I'm imaging two arms, and then I look back at film and I'm like, 'oh my gosh, I totally forgot!"
She may make passing look easy, but getting to place where she could play college volleyball was more of a challenge.
"She said that she's had a couple coaches tell her that she can't do what everybody else does because of this," said Hendrix head coach, M.C. Parker, "and honestly it broke my heart."
There is one in particular that stands out for Stephens. "My middle school teacher telling me I wasn't on the A-team while all my friends were because I couldn't pass and I just couldn't do certain things," she recalled.
Avery couldn't do certain things, but she could do things differently. A message that's important for both her teammates and her opponents.
"It speaks volumes to me as a coach," said Parker, "and I think to other players who are going through the same thing because I think they're seeing an example of what it looks like to push through something that makes you different from other people."
"Everybody is and they shouldn't be judged for it, and everyone can accomplish things in their own ways and it doesn't all have to be the same," said Stephens. "Sometimes it makes me wonder what I would be able to do with two arms, but then I'm like, 'if I had two arms, I wouldn't be here right now' and so I'm just thankful for it."