By Ella Harvey
When OnLion staff interviewed junior (then sophomore) volleyball player Mackenzie Cummings last year, she had just made the varsity team for the first time as a sophomore. Last season, the girls’ varsity volleyball team won the state championship, and for the remaining month of her junior season, Mackenzie has high hopes again.
So far, the girls have “won 29 games, lost 6, and we are 5-0 in our region,” Mackenzie explained. She has enjoyed every game so far, but her favorite game this season has been Westminster @ Lovett, which she felt was a great accomplishment because “we came back from losing in the previous set.”
For the rest of the season, Mackenzie thinks the other big game will be against Holy Innocents on 10/05/26 (Lovett won both sets!), before they go on to region playoffs and then state playoffs. This makes their record 30-6, and they are first in their region.
Her role on the team is “a little bit of everything,” playing both setter and right side. A setter usually takes the second touch of a 3-touch rally before getting the volleyball over the net again, so after the team’s initial pass and before the final attacking hit.
A right-side blocker blocks opponents’ hits and is typically considered a backup setter (for example, if the original setter does not have enough room, the right-side comes into play).
As much as the team has had many successes, Mackenzie claims that the biggest challenge this year was losing the Class of 2026, which made up a majority of their starting lineup in previous seasons. This had its early-season complications when she felt that “we weren’t as strong as we had been last year because we were learning to work with new players.”
But that only made them want to work and play harder.
The team practices five days a week with additional morning weight training in the Murray Athletic Center twice a week. During practice, their biggest goal is “mastering plays we want to run during games.”
She very vaguely told me they practice “hitting and setting,” which she laughed about, figuring that was a given to every volleyball practice.
It is not grinding all the time, though. Mackenzie explained that they have a lot of fun during practice and feel like a very balanced, bonded team. She thinks this is due to two reasons. After games, they have frequent “pasta dinners,” and some of their big away tournaments have been a chance to bond. “We had a tournament in Tennessee that was a lot of fun, and it made everybody really close with the team because we got roommates,” Mackenzie explained.
Overall, out of her three seasons of high school volleyball, Mackenzie feels she has enjoyed this one the most because “The team feels closer than ever,” and she is enjoying working toward the playoffs again this season.
