And yep, it’s freshmen, as head coach Ryan Theis does not have any transfers debuting this season.
Hello!
We’re just days away from the start of the 2024 Marquette volleyball season! There’s already been a lot of season preview content that you should check out, but relative to what we’re doing here today, you should definitely check out our (very long) rundown of all of the returning players on the roster this fall. Marquette returns six of their seven starters from 2023 and the bench is very deep for head coach Ryan Theis and his staff.
It’s important to keep all of that in mind because we’re talking about MU’s three freshmen today. At a glance, it’s hard to predict a boatload of playing time for any of them this fall, and the returning players rundown will help explain the context of all of that. Let’s get into it, shall we? Going in alphabetical order, mostly because it provides us with some positional distinctions in the lineup as well…..
Meghan Clifford
#6 — Middle Blocker — 6’3” — Fairport, New York
Well, let’s just get right to it. Here’s what Ryan Theis said about Clifford when she signed to play with the Golden Eagles last December:
Meghan will need a year to catch up to the speed of our game, but she is a big part of our future.
Yep! It seems the plan is for Clifford to redshirt in 2024. Now, a casual glance at Marquette’s middle blocker situation could easily tell you that Clifford was probably going to struggle to find playing time this season anyway. Hattie Bray and Carsen Murray are going to occupy most of the playing time in the middle, and Morgan Daugherty is in her third year with the program and second of active play after redshirting in 2022. Now, there is a role to fill on the team, as Anastasija Svetnik played some quality rotations last year, and someone has to pick up that spot on the roster. If the coaches figure out that Clifford is way ahead of Daugherty even given the age difference, then you have to make the move to put the best team on the floor. We can’t really rule it out, as Clifford earned First Team All-New York honors while winning a state title as a senior, and she picked up back-to-back sectional MVP awards to close out her prep career, too. She’s obviously a good volleyball player, but if Theis can already tell that she needs fast twitch development, it is what it is.
Calli Kenny
#5 — Setter/Defensive Specialist/Right Side Hitter — 5’9” — Villa Park, Illinois
Hey, who remembers Marquette assistant coach Meghan Keck? Yeah, so, she was Kenny’s club team coach. Can you say “recruiting pipeline”? I knew you could. Here’s a list of things that Calli Kenny did while she was in high school:
- single season school record in kills
- single season school record in aces
- career school record in kills and aces
Seems good. She played as a right side hitter and a setter in a rotation system for Willowbrook High this past year, but she played a variety of roles on her way to that spot in 2023. There’s a quote from Ryan Theis in her official team bio that says she even added playing libero to her skill set over the past year, and given the rest of her accolades, I suspect that’s while playing for Keck on the club circuit.
I don’t think Kenny can get on the floor as a setter this season, not with Yadhira Anchante taking up most of the space there and Ella Foti occupying that similar S/RS spot that Kenny was at in high school. MU does have a need for a libero this season as there isn’t someone who’s the obvious pick to get that spot in 2024. I don’t think it’s out of the question to suggest that Theis straight up asked his former assistant to see if Kenny would work as a libero and get her reps on the club circuit with an idea to put her on the floor right away in Milwaukee. I’m a little more optimistic about seeing Kenny on the floor than I am for Clifford, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Malayah Long
#3 — Setter — 6’1” — Lincoln, Nebraska
When you pull a Division 1 capable player out of Lincoln, right out from underneath Noted National Power Nebraska, you’re doing something right with your life. Even more so when you have a situation like with Long, where she’s coming off leading her high school to their first ever state championship as a senior. Long was tournament MVP and First Team All-State according to both the Omaha World Herald and the Lincoln Journal Star. She broke the school record for career assists, assists per set, and single season assists.
And yet, somehow, she’s only Prep Dig’s #4 prospect in the state.
It’s also not likely that she plays all that much this season. Scroll back to the Calli Kenny section where I pointed out that Marquette has a setter rotation set in place with Yadhira Anchante and Ella Foti. Sure, it’s possible that Ryan Theis and his staff could see fit to alter the tactics and go to a more of a pure substitution setter situation, and maybe that shifts Foti to more of a hitter and gives Long (or Kenny?) a space as the setter coming off the bench. Long’s 6’1” height does make her the tallest of Marquette’s options at setter, beating out both Anchante and Foti by an inch. That’s not enough to get her past them on the depth chart, but if she can contribute well enough in the blocking department at the net, maybe that’s a look that the Golden Eagles can throw at people in a change of pace from what they’ve been the past few years.