The Boyers were sitting around the dinner table at a local restaurant in Kennesaw like they had done many times before, but there was something different about this dinner.
 
The Owls had just earned a big conference win over USC Upstate and Anaiah looked at her twin sister, Amariah, and said, "I'm so proud of you."
 
In that moment, it hit Amariah what she had accomplished and how far she had come over the past year.
 
When Keith Schunzel was hired at Kennesaw State in 2013, he and his staff hit the road immediately to start recruiting. Within a month being on the job, they had identified Anaiah and Amariah Boyer as recruits they wanted to get on campus to start building their program.
 
"Initially, we looked at them and said wow," Schunzel said. "They were both good athletes, but Amariah was exceptional and even more so than Anaiah at the time. They were both young for their age and at 16 she (Amariah) was jumping around 10 feet and was super dynamic. We got on her quickly and then, after watching Anaiah a little more, wanted both of them and went after them hard."
 
As college recruiting picked up for both twins, initially it wasn't a priority for either of them to play together at the next level.
 
"Anaiah and I had been playing together since we were eight, so by the time we were being recruited by colleges, we wanted to go our own ways," Amariah said. "I stay here and she go there type of thing."
 
In the spring of their junior season in high school, a trip to Kennesaw State changed that. Once they both got on the campus, they fell in love with it and knew it was the place for both of them. They immediately committed to the Owls.
 
As August approached and it came time to move into their dorms, the regular stresses came with that as the two started fall camp with their new team and began college classes shortly after. Amariah's body didn't feel right, but she chalked it up to the new surroundings and not being comfortable yet. In the middle of the first practice, she knew it was something more than that.
 
"I got here and realized something was wrong at our first practice," Amariah said. "I just wasn't jumping the way I normally jumped and we were doing pit drills and couldn't move. It's like I was moving in sand."
 
At one point in the middle of that practice, the former volleyball athletic trainer, Lisa Bewley, pulled Amariah out of practice to ask her if she was ok. What neither of them knew at the time was that would be the last practice of the year for Amariah.
 
"That night I got home and thought maybe it was just my nerves and I wasn't ready for the overwhelming pressure," Amariah said. "I'll take the night off, get some food and water in me and get a good night of sleep and be fine the next day. I woke up and still had the tingling sensation in my hands and feet so I started thinking maybe there is something bigger than just being stressed out."
 
Once the tingling feeling didn't go away, Amariah started going to different doctors to figure out what exactly was going on. Meanwhile, her body was only getting worse and she had no idea why.
 
"I remember walking campus was the hardest thing," Amariah said. "Every morning Anaiah would essentially come and help me button my clothes and make sure I had eaten breakfast. It even got so bad that we would walk to campus with me holding her arm because I couldn't walk from my apartment to class."
 
For the twins, this was a changing of roles in their relationship.
 
"Amariah has always been the one in the relationship that has taken care of me, so for her to have to lean on me asking me to do something for her was very different and probably uncomfortable for her," Anaiah said. "During that period of not knowing what was going on though, I was going to be there for her no matter what."
 
After a series of doctor visits and initially thinking it was an orthopedic issue with her feet, Amariah was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
 
Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects the spinal cord and brain and early symptoms include blurred vision, thinking problems, lack of coordination, loss of balance, numbness, tingling and weakness in an arm or leg.
 
"It was tough being diagnosed because I didn't know what the next step was," Amariah said. "Was I going to be able to play volleyball again? When the diagnosis came, I had no idea where I was going to go from there. I was already at KSU and now I'm not playing volleyball and didn't know what to do."
 
Quickly after being diagnosed, there was a meeting between Amariah, her mom Elaine, Schunzel and Bewley about what they were going to do next.
 
"We educated ourselves pretty quickly on what the next best steps were and then got together to let them know that we're here to support her," Schunzel said. "With all of the unknowns, I wanted them to know that no matter what happens and whether she ever put a jersey on for this team, she's a part of this team no matter what."
 
Once the treatment started, the medicine almost had an immediate effect.
 
"After being diagnosed, I had a series of three steroid shots to get me the best chance of playing again," Amariah said. "I did that for three days and mentally I felt better. Physically I still had the symptoms, but mentally I was gaining progress from where I was. After that, it was a huge difference just from the steroid shots."
 
Through the rest of the fall, Amariah continued to get treatment and improved while traveling with the team and doing whatever she could to be a part of it, whether that was shagging balls at practice or just trying to lift up her teammates.
 
Once spring rolled around, Amariah was cleared to start practicing and was eager to get back out on the court with her sister and her teammates.
 
"We planned to ease her back in to a certain extent, but we explained to her it wouldn't do her any justice for me to not see how far we can push her," Schunzel said. "When she was cleared, she performed unbelievably. We would say constantly that we can't believe how well she's doing so quickly. That first spring, she did almost everything. It was amazing what she was doing."
 
Once she was cleared, Amariah started making huge strides at practice and in the weight room. She was touching 10'2" after initially touching 9'6" when she first reported to campus in a vertical jump test. In the weight room, she was front squatting 250 pounds, making her pound-for-pound one of the strongest female student-athletes at Kennesaw State.
 
"The driving force in getting back on the court and pushing myself to do things that almost felt impossible at the time was being able to play with Anaiah again and experience college ball with her," Amariah said.
 
Fall of 2015 finally was here and Amariah kept pushing herself, having no idea when she would get her chance. She was going to make sure she was ready when her number was called. That all finally came in the ASUN Conference opener against USC Upstate. No surprise to her teammates, she came up big in key moments to help seal a five-set victory for the Owls.
 
"Amariah because of what she's gone through and how we approach it, at times I forget what she's dealing with," Schunzel said. "She's dealing with a very serious thing and is doing something that very few people have done. There are times when I think this is incredible what she's doing. That match in particular I do vividly remember when we put her in and her mom and fans in the stands were going nuts and her teammates were going nuts, I vividly remember thinking this is incredible. We won that match partially because of her. She blocked their left side off the court. It was a goose-bump moment."
 
Amariah finished her first collegiate match with eight kills and seven blocks with her eighth kill coming on match point to clinch the victory.
 
"Being able to step on the court finally with my teammates and Anaiah was huge," Amariah said. "It was bigger than I could ever imagine because I didn't really know what that moment was going to be like. Finally getting to go in was a really cool feeling."
 
After that match, it still hadn't hit Amariah what exactly she had been through and had just accomplished.
 
"It finally hit me when we went out to eat after the game and Anaiah looked at me and said 'I'm so proud of you.' I was like wow," Amariah said. "I wanted it so bad to step on the court with her and play so the fact that she was proud of me it really got me."
 
 
After finishing with 57 kills and 35.0 blocks during her redshirt freshman season, Amariah has bigger goals for 2016 and she's well on her way to accomplishing them as she has been the starting right side so far this season on a team that was picked to finish second in the ASUN Preseason Coach's poll.
 
No matter what happens the rest of her career, she will be an inspiration for Kennesaw State volleyball for a long time.
 
 

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