As the last point of the season concluded and Lincoln Southwest officially made history, Malayah Long looked at her mom and sister in the stands and that’s when the tears of joy started flowing. The Silver Hawks had never captured a state championship until that moment when they swept past Papillion-La Vista in the Nebraska Class A final and in the process becoming the first Lincoln school since 1998 to accomplish the feat.
“Volleyball means so much to me,” said Long, a 4-star senior setter and Marquette signee. “Growing up my father passed away when I was 10 and I want to make him proud. I’ve spent so much time and effort. I’m always in the gym with (club coach) Blake (Rawlins). I wanted this goal. This was my final chance at it and making history by winning state. Just thinking about it I can’t even express to my school, my community and everyone around me what it means.”
Until last season, Lincoln Southwest hadn’t even advanced as far as the semifinals in the state playoffs. It was quite the achievement but with the team’s two best attackers graduating the roster wasn’t necessarily shaped for a deeper run in 2023. One thing was for sure though, no matter what happened this fall, Long was going to be the centerpiece.
“I think the success this year stemmed back to last season,” Lincoln Southwest coach Jessica Kirkendall said. “This was my second year as head coach and after losing last year there was a bit of doubt in general losing the seniors we did but Malayah was not going to let people say that.
“It was her motivation for this season that we are not done, we are not ending like that. She had everyone realizing that we could do better than what we did before and that’s exactly what they did.”
Long ended the year with 1,067 assists, averaging 10.7 per set. She was also second in both digs (290) and aces (36), as well as fourth in blocks (38). She had seven matches of 40 assists or more, including a season-best 44 in a five-set loss to Lincoln East as the Silver Hawks finished the year 33-4. However, the reason Long is the vballrecruiter.com 2023 Senior Player of the Year goes well beyond the numbers.
“I definitely think Malayah is every coach’s dream,” Kirkendall said. “She was our floor captain for that reason. She has a high IQ that goes both ways. She knows what is going on on the other side of the net. She also knows our side of the net and her teammates. If this person has an error she can tell them they need to take responsibility. Or she knows to give this person her space. She really understands her teammates and really wanted the team to come together. She’s the first one to say what are we doing this weekend or what are we doing after practice. She knows in order to play really good volleyball there has to be chemistry and good relationships. These past two years the girls are genuinely friends with each other in and out of volleyball.”
Becoming a better leader was one of the main focuses for Long this fall. She made it a goal to learn and connect with her teammates in a way that was going to make them better and get the most out of their talent.
It meant something as simple as making eye contact or knowing what teammates like physical contact. It meant telling her middle that she needed to swing on the next ball or pumping up another player who needed lots of energy and encouragement.
“For me personally I wanted to change my role as a leader,” Long said. “As the setter, they all look at my leadership. I’m very intense. I want to win. I’m super competitive. I want to win every single point. This year I looked at each player to see how they work and how I can impact each of them. It was figuring out each player and working to focus on that this year.”
For Long, the turning point this fall came with the five-set loss to rival Lincoln East on Senior night. Her team had controlled the first two sets but was unable to close out the match and dropped the next three. It’s the type of loss that can derail a season as it’s easy in that situation to lose confidence. Instead, it fueled Long and her teammates.
“Looking back, if we would have won that match I think we would have stayed complacent and taken reps off in practice and not giving it our all,” Long said. “After that game, we came to practice and our coach held us accountable. We knew we had to work for every point and that it started in practice. If we wanted to be the team we wanted to be we had to hold ourselves to a different standard. That was a wake-up call.”
As Long moves on to college next year, she’ll leave her legacy behind and a void to be filled. Kirkendall said she’s obviously going to miss what Long brings to the court, but it’s the non-volleyball stuff Long did that might make her the saddest about Long’s departure.
“Her personality outside of volleyball is really cool and genuine,” Kirkendall said. “I teach first grade and that’s different from other coaches at the high school level. For the past two years she has come into my classroom and volunteered and just hung out and be a face for the kids. They absolutely adore her. We had several first-graders come to the state final with signs that said Mo Long is my hero. She is so involved with the high school. She’s a teacher assistant in the life skill classroom. For the state sendoff kids had signs for her. I feel like overall she’s her genuine self and it’s not about look at me. She’s such a giving person. At summer team camps she wants to take the youngest group, the more timid group, and says this is what we are going to do. She has a fan club behind her. I’m going to miss her next year. I may need to plan our camp around what she’s doing at Marquette.”
