Steller has been just that for UC Irvine

The term kill seems hardly an overstatement when Jon Steller rises from the floor to collide with a set, pounding it with such concussive force.

Again, and again the 6-foot-7 physical force attacks the opposition, leading the No. 8-ranked UC Irvine men’s volleyball team in kills and in would-be-digger submission.

But it was not long ago that the aggressive abandon with which the lethal left-hander unleashes himself upon the hitting zone was merely a front; camouflage for nearly three years as a collegian in which confidence was as fluid as the dripping residue from the ice bags that encased his fragile knees three times each day.

Within a period of weeks, this season, Steller first resigned himself to the fate of an understudy, only to then capture the spotlight as Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Player of the Week. He later added National Player of the Week laurels, while being honored for a second time by the MPSF.

Even now, as the redshirt junior and the No. 7-seeded Anteaters (15-14) prepare to face No. 8-seeded USC in an MPSF Tournament “play-in” match tonight at 7 at Crawford Court, the transformation surprises its catalyst.

“I don’t remember when that kind of transition happened,” said Steller, whose 352 kills, 3.38 kills-per-game average and 37 service aces lead the No. 8-ranked squad. He is averaging 4.75 kills per game in the 17 matches he has started this season, including a career-high 29 kills March 14 at Hawaii.

“I know it definitely took me a while to get my confidence up. It could have been after the Pepperdine and USC matches [Feb. 6 and 8, respectively], when I was surprised by being named [MPSF] Player of the Week.”

Those two matches were his first two starts of the season at the opposite position, after seven doubt-filled contests as a serving specialist, a quaint synonym for seldom-used scrub.

The bench had become familiar to Steller ever since the throbbing pain in his knees became a daunting diagnosis of one torn patellar tendon and another hanging by a thread.

It came late in his freshman year out of Clovis West High, a debut campaign in which he had cracked the starting lineup — lacing 22 kills in the first match of the season — and had fostered glowing forecasts from Coach John Speraw.

“When he came in, he was a big-time prospect,” Speraw said of Steller, who had grown eight inches in high school before choosing UCI over USC and Stanford. “He had a cannon for an arm and good grades and you knew this guy was going to be good for us.

“But, obviously, his knee problems kept him off the court. And, even when he got back on the court, he was never really able to train at a really high level.”

Steller, recuperating from knee surgery, redshirted the 2006 season in which the Anteaters won the program’s first MPSF regular-season title, then took their No. 1 ranking to the Final Four, where they lost in a five-game semifinal to host Penn State.

Last season, as the ’Eaters claimed the programs first NCAA crown, Steller had just 16 kills in 70 games, with just one headline-making performance in a home victory over Hawaii.

“I hadn’t really been successful and lived up to my own expectations,” Steller said of the thought process that led to him to ask Speraw last off-season if he should simply retire from the sport and direct all his focus toward his neuro-biology degree and a subsequent trip to medical school.

Speraw, who had cautiously overseen Steller’s surgical rehabilitation, encouraged him to give it one last try.

“We decided to stop babying my knees and just go for it,” said Steller, who began squatting weights, which was previously taboo. He eventually played in back-to-back matches without a thought.

Still, however, Steller stuck to his thrice daily icing ritual, and he uses a 40-minute warmup in addition to extensive stretching exercises in preparation for any on-court activity.

But Steller spent the first month of the season on the bench, seemingly left behind.

“It was a little depressing for me,” he said. “I just basically had lost all my individual goals and I only had team goals. I was never hoping for any player of the week awards and I lost all my dreams of ever being an All-American or anything like that. I just wanted to be the best teammate I could be and help our team in whatever way I could. If that meant being a serving specialist again, I was going to be a serving specialist again. And then, at the end of the year, I was going to go to Speraw and ask him if he wanted me to keep it going next year, or maybe just hang ’em up.”

But a debilitating ankle injury that sidelined starting opposite Taylor Wilson helped create an opening. Steller seized it and has remained healthy.

“There are very few good opposites in America right now,” Speraw said. “There are some teams out there that don’t have it and we do have it. And that’s one of the reasons why we’ve been able to hang tough throughout the season, despite losing some key guys.

“[Steller] hits the ball; that’s what he does. He hits his serve and he hits his shot. He’s not a great defender and he’s not a great blocker, although he has improved as a blocker. I just want him to hit the ball hard and he does a nice job with all of that. He has had a great year, and we’re looking for him to have a great year next year. All of a sudden, he went from almost hanging them up to being a potential All-American down the road.”