Within the days after he watched Rya McKinnon tally a program-record 30 kills in a five-set win over George Mason, Howard coach Shaun Kupferberg had a easy message for his sophomore outdoors hitter.
Kupferberg didn’t need McKinnon to ever try this once more.
Make no mistake, Kupferberg wasn’t being crucial of his sophomore outdoors hitter. He was impressed by the eye-opening quantity as a lot as anybody. However the circumstances underneath which McKinnon gathered that complete weren’t preferrred.
The Bison (3-3) have been beset by accidents within the early going, so depth already was a problem, and Kupferberg was utilizing a makeshift beginning lineup. Finally, Kupferberg stated, he was out of subs. The truth is, Howard performed some extent within the fifth set with solely 5 gamers on the court docket.
All of that conspired to have the Bison lean on the 2022 MEAC freshman and participant of the 12 months just a little greater than they’d have favored.
“Truthfully, we don’t need her getting 30 kills,” stated Kupferberg, in his eleventh season on the traditionally Black college and coming off a 20-10 effort in 2022. “I stated, ‘I hope you by no means break that report as a result of we must always by no means be setting you that a lot.’ ”
Be that as it’d, the efficiency illustrated simply how dominant McKinnon might be and the way she has the flexibility to hold a workforce. The the product of Hoover, Alabama, needed to do a variety of the heavy lifting throughout Howard’s first three matches, taking 164 swings and piling up 71 kills — whereas hitting .300 — because the Bison went 2-1.
Within the match earlier than her 30-kill effort in opposition to George Mason, she had 27 kills (.371) in a five-set victory over George Washington. Howard opened the season with a three-set loss to Georgetown, and, maybe not coincidentally, McKinnon struggled in that match, getting “solely” 14 kills on .143 hitting.
Nonetheless, 71 kills in three matches? That’s heady stuff at any degree.
“It was very enjoyable and a really rewarding feeling,” McKinnon stated, “simply figuring out that I needed to sit out the earlier (season’s early matches due to harm). It felt good simply to be again on the court docket and be capable to get these kills.”
McKinnon can be within the dialogue of the very best least-known participant within the nation, and her background makes her a little bit of an underdog as effectively.
McKinnon even began out in one other sport: gymnastics. However she determined she was “manner too tall” for gymnastics, so she took the street much less traveled and gave volleyball a attempt.
“Which is form of odd,” McKinnon stated about her top being a downside in gymnastics, “as a result of I’m brief for volleyball now.”
She is listed at 5-foot-11 on the Howard roster, however McKinnon admitted she is nearer to 5-9.
Moreover her relative lack of top, she performed on smaller membership groups and didn’t have the benefit of dealing with harder nationwide competitors as gamers at greater, extra prestigious golf equipment may.
So how did McKinnon develop right into a participant who has taken the MEAC by storm and appears on the verge of changing into a nationwide presence? She was the primary MEAC volleyball participant to be named Participant of the 12 months and Rookie of the 12 months in the identical season since MEAC Corridor of Famer Jana Milin of Maryland Jap Shore in 2002.
For starters, she is the daughter of a former NFL participant. Her father, Ronald McKinnon, spent 10 years within the NFL — 9 with the Arizona Cardinals — and put collectively a pleasant profession, amassing 1,000-plus, 10 interceptions and 12 sacks from his linebacker spot.
Rya stated her father, an assistant soccer coach at Division II Miles Faculty, usually exhibits her his outdated soccer movies.
“I really feel like there’s at all times a aggressive facet,” she stated. “I need to be higher than my father. He at all times pushes me, at all times motivates me to at all times simply get the additional reps and at all times work tougher than different individuals.”
McKinnon additionally has freakish athleticism on her facet. Regardless of her top, she will contact a basketball rim. Kupferberg stated she reaches 10-2.
“I really feel like that’s actually helped me with hitting and enjoying in opposition to individuals taller than me,” McKinnon stated. “And I’m simply an aggressive participant. I need to win, I need to get kills, I need to slam the ball down.”
Which results in the opposite — and maybe most vital — consider her success. McKinnon is self-motivated. Kupferberg stated athletes like her make his job lots simpler.
“From the day she got here within the health club, she was a born competitor,” he stated. “She’s the kind of athlete that each coach needs. She’s only a straight athlete from the psychological standpoint and bodily standpoint.
“She’s doing it the appropriate manner … She’s at all times on the lookout for one thing to get higher at. She’s not targeted on stats. I don’t even know if she appears to be like at that stuff.”
As gifted and cerebral as McKinnon was, Kupferberg knew she was removed from a completed product.
Her hitting capability was by no means a lot doubtful. Whereas many younger hitters have to broaden their shot repertoire as a result of they now not can depend on uncooked energy, McKinnon had developed another swings even earlier than arriving at Howard.
The trick, Kupferberg stated, was getting her to hit these pictures with extra consistency, one thing she has been in a position to do in her first year-plus with the Bison.
She additionally wanted to turn into more adept at passing. That, too, has come a great distance, with Kupferberg calling her a “rock-solid serve receiver.”
Maybe the a part of her sport that has taken off essentially the most is her blocking capability. That was by no means extra evident than within the win over George Mason. Although that eternally shall be remembered because the match wherein McKinnon put down 30 kills, she additionally had six blocks, practically half of her complete from all of 2022 (15).
She even received a block help on the match-clinching level.
“It’s one thing we labored on all spring,” Kupferberg stated. “We all know she’s going to place up kills, however her blocking was one thing she actually labored exhausting on all spring.
“She’s positively excessive sufficient. It’s only a matter of the place she’s blocking, and I feel she’s doing a significantly better job of that this 12 months.”
One ultimate space of thriller that remained coming into the season was how McKinnon would fare in opposition to greater colleges. She did hit .400 in an exhibition match in opposition to professionals from Athletes Limitless, however she nonetheless is basically untested in opposition to Energy 5 colleges.
As she battled accidents throughout the early a part of her freshman season, she was restricted to largely again row duties in matches in opposition to Penn State and Tulane, getting solely two mixed assaults in these matches – each in opposition to Penn State. And she or he missed the Bison’s match with Washington State.
This season, she lastly received that likelihood.
Thursday, she had 11 kills in a 3-1 loss (20-25, 27-25, 16-25, 19-25) to NC State. She had a match-high 18 kills in a reverse sweep of Winthrop on Friday. However she was held to 9 kills and hit simply .029 because the Bison had been swept by Rutgers on Saturday.
In 25 units this season, McKinnon has 109 kills (4.36/set), 55 greater than her subsequent closest teammate. She’s second on the workforce in digs at 2.96/set and has 11 blocks, two solo.
Howard performs three matches in three days this weekend, in opposition to in opposition to the ACC’s Virginia, final 12 months’s America East champion in UMBC, and the Huge Ten’s Maryland. The Bison end the pre-conference season in opposition to the ACC’s Georgia Tech, SEC’s Georgia, and D.C. rival American of the Patriot League.
Accordingly, with the schedule ramping up, McKinnon ought to have loads of time to work on her level of emphasis, setting apart frustrations and deal with getting higher the subsequent match. That was an space, Kupferberg stated, he was very intentional about serving to her type out.
“She’s so used to being bodily dominant, that when she is caught just a little bit, she will get just a little annoyed,” he stated, noting that, in practices, he would purposely attempt to make her assaults tough. “She received stifled within the first set in opposition to Georgetown (this 12 months). She was attempting too exhausting, I feel, and did some issues she doesn’t usually do in apply.
“However she bounced proper again within the second sport. She hit detrimental within the first sport however then she bounced again and hit optimistic and hit over .600 the remainder of the best way.”
There’s one frustration McKinnon and the Bison didn’t recover from so simply: lacking out on the 2022 MEAC title and a visit to the NCAA Match. Within the earlier seven seasons, Howard had been the convention champion and an NCAA participant six occasions.
These are two wrongs McKinnon is keen to see corrected.
“Now we have a really gifted workforce, a really stacked workforce,” she stated. “Final 12 months, we weren’t actually pleased with how we performed, and I feel that’s going to present us a variety of hearth underneath us.
“That (lacking the NCAA) form of affected us all actually exhausting. I feel coming on this summer time, we actually form of set new requirements for our workforce and new objectives. Our expectations are lots completely different. We’re coaching lots in a different way now as a result of we need to return and win the MEAC and be capable to be within the event.”
That “stacked workforce” McKinnon spoke about contains quite a few gamers she stated she is worked up to look at all through the season:
— Senior proper facet hitter Jennifer Bolden, who has battled accidents all through her time at Howard however is beginning to return to well being, as evidenced by 12 kills vs. Winthrop
— Sophomore libero Claire Simpson, who had nearly as many digs — 69 — as McKinnon had kills over the primary three matches
— Setter Kayla Diaz, the returning MEAC co-Setter of the 12 months, who, thanks in no small half to McKinnon, had 154 assists within the Bison’s first three matches
— And junior outdoors Dami Awojobi, who led Howard with 22 kills in opposition to Georgetown
“I feel this 12 months our power is we simply work very well collectively,” McKinnon stated. “We get alongside, so that actually does translate on the court docket with how we work collectively and the way we rating factors.”
By successful one other MEAC title and getting again to the NCAA Match, McKinnon hopes the Bison can also shed some gentle on the volleyball expertise that exists at HBCU colleges. It’s a section of the volleyball world, she believes, will get neglected regardless of having “a variety of very bodily individuals who can soar out of the health club.”
McKinnon, definitely is one. And she or he thinks she, too, is perhaps a bit neglected.
Kupferberg thinks that may change some day within the not-so-distant future.
“I feel she might be dominant proper now,” he stated. “I don’t suppose she must be 2 or 3 inches taller. She will be able to play pretty much as good as any top-10 outdoors hitter within the nation proper now. I do know it sounds just a little loopy coming from just a little HBCU, however we’ll see within the subsequent couple of weeks as we play some Energy 5s and that sort of stuff.
“I feel she will play on the nationwide workforce. I don’t see a cause why she will’t. She simply wants to search out herself and ensure she understands what her strengths and weaknesses are and simply continue to grow in these, and I feel she’s doing that.”
He simply doesn’t need her to exhibit by having to kill 30 balls in a match.
