In sports, possibly the biggest cheers and fan praises are reserved for the players who rack up goals, points, touchdowns””and kills.

In fast-paced volleyball””a sport that seems to increase in suspense the longer the ball fails to hit the ground””the scorers are usually outside hitters and middle blockers.

But, who, exactly, gets the ball in the hands of these offensive weapons? For the Fresno State volleyball team, it’s senior setter Barbara Alcantara.

Setter, a role in volleyball that nearly always gets the second touch on a possession, is usually the one to put an offensive player in position for an attack.

“Without the setter, you don’t have a hitter and you can’t pass the ball to anyone,” sophomore middle blocker Maci Murdock said. “I think it’s the hardest position on the team.”

Alcantara leads the Mountain West Conference in assists with 498 in 45 sets. Four Fresno State players, including Murdock, have more than 100 kills in the season.

As team captain, Alcantara has established herself as a necessary cog in the Bulldogs’ offense, coach Lauren Netherby-Sewell said.

“She’s much improved,” Netherby-Sewell said. “She’s running a faster-tempo offense and she’s being a good leader. She’s communicating consistently and running the offense like a senior and captain would.”

Alcantara, a native of Curitiba, Brazil, has played competitively at the collegiate and international level. She was recruited by Netherby-Sewell out of College of Southern Idaho, a National Junior College Athletic Association program. Southern Idaho made it to the Division I semifinals in the NJCAA national tournament in 2009, Alcantara’s freshman year.

With two years of eligibility remaining in the NCAA, potential teams such as Auburn and Penn State also were recruiting her. For Alcantara, her decision to play at Fresno State came down to a number of variables asides from volleyball.

“I feel that it wasn’t just volleyball that was important when going on a recruiting visit,” Alcantara said. “I think you have to see everything overall””where you’re going to live, how the city is … everything matters. I feel like I chose Fresno State because it had all those things combined.”

Murdock said she and Alcantara first met in Murdock’s senior year of high school, when both were on official Fresno State visits.

“I just thought it was really cool that she had an accent,” Murdock said. “She’s from a different country so I thought it was pretty cool listening to her accent. She just seemed really nice and friendly.”

She never thought she and Alcantara would someday be teammates.

Alcantara began playing volleyball competitively when she was age 9. Her oldest sister piqued her interest in the sport at that age.

“I actually started playing because my oldest sister used to play,” Alcantara said. “She was part of this club team. I liked it. A year later I started playing because you could only start when you’re 9-years old. So I started the next year.”

“Pretty much because of her, I ended up liking it a lot.”

With Murdock and outside hitters Korrin Wild and Marissa Brand playing on an offensively potent roster, it is Alcantara who has the task of coordinating and leading Fresno State’s hitting game.

“In our program we really value the little things,” Netherby-Sewell said. “People may be cheering on the big hitters, but we’re giving our high-fives to the passers, the setters and the defenders. We give value to it””and that’s all that matters. [Barbara] thrives off of big hits and being the one delivering those balls.”

The importance of the setter position was evident in the Western Athletic Conference tournament semifinals last year.

In that match, the Bulldogs were close to upsetting first-seeded Hawaii, then-ranked third in the nation by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. Fresno State had won the first two sets in a match that would eventually be decided in five.

In the final set, Hawaii committed three consecutive attacking errors behind Alcantara’s serving to bring the Bulldogs within a point of tying the game at six points. But the Bulldogs lost the final set 15-10.

Looking back, the Bulldogs came within four points from possibly capturing the WAC championship.

A conference championship is still on top of the list of goals for Fresno State, Alcantara said.

“Of course, our goal is to win the Mountain West Conference. But, for that, we need to play each game first and take one step at a time,” she said. “We can’t just focus on the big picture and skip the small steps.”

The Bulldogs enter conference play in the Mountain West on Thursday night at Boise State.