McCallum offers their volleyball players the opportunity to participate in a lower-commitment, spring volleyball league. The players make up three teams following the program’s theme for the year. This year, McCallum’s theme is planets, with the team names Venus, Mercury and Pluto. The teams meet every Monday at Eastside High School to play other schools in three different games.
For sophomore Edie Davidson, spring league is a fun way to work on her volleyball skills while also having a less pressured environment.
“I feel like the team in general is really fun to be around,” Davidson said. “Everyone’s really funny, so we’re always laughing and even in games we can be very unserious, but it’s really fun and we are still able to do well.”
Davidson, alongside main captain, junior Sienna Martens, is given the opportunity to be a co-captain for the Venus, or varsity, team.
“As captains we go up and do the coin flip, pick sides and serve,” Davidson said. “We also have to keep everyone in line, but it’s not super serious so I feel like we don’t really have too much to do.”
Martens had many duties as the main captain, one being making the team’s lineups for games.
“Since the lineups we use for school volleyball are not the same ones that are used for club volleyball, it got really confusing at times,” Martens said. “We ended up having to play with a weird lineup where everyone was in different positions. While it was challenging, it honestly made it more fun since we were all kind of in random spots and taught us how to work with different people in different positions.”
Freshman Maiko Rathnasingham enjoys spring league because the current seniors, Kafia Jackson-Woods and Aaniya Thornton, are the freshmen and eighth graders’ coaches. She feels that she has learned a lot from them because they are well experienced from being on the team for the past four years.
“They’re really nice and they’ve been good coaches,” Rathnasingham said. “They’re both committed to play in college, so I think that they have a lot of tips to share with us.”
Spring league offers incoming freshmen the opportunity to play with the current freshmen, allowing them to get to know each other before the school volleyball season starts.
“I have really liked getting to know everyone,” Rathnasingham said. “I feel like I know the incoming freshmen better and we have been able to become friends.”
Junior Luella Smith agrees with Rathnasingham, and thinks that spring league helps build strong bonds that will show on the court in the following season.
“It is really nice to have more time to play with the people that will be with you during the school season because you learn how to communicate with each other,” Smith said.
Martens liked getting to mix up the teams compared to the school season because she got to play with sophomores and juniors that were not on her team during the past season.
“Even though some of us hadn’t played together before, we had so much fun as a team and played really well together,” Martens said.
When in-school season ends many players on the team play on outside of school club teams, but some do not have the time to do so. Rathnasingham thinks that spring league is a great chance for those not on club teams to continue to practice and play.
“It’s a fun competition between schools,” Rathnasingham said. “People who aren’t on club teams or aren’t at McCallum yet get the chance to practice outside of our set school season. I like that the spring league is less competitive and less of a commitment.”
While Martens liked getting to practice her normal positions, preparing for the upcoming season, she really liked stepping outside of her comfort zone and trying new things. As captain she was able to assign positions, allowing everyone a chance to try different positions.
“I had so much fun getting to run positions that I wouldn’t normally play,” Martens said. “It was also really fun to get to be a captain and make our lineups.”
Smith has enjoyed getting to play games against other schools and practice for the 2026-2027 school year, but the highlight for her has been hanging out with her friends.
“I have loved getting to make memories with all of my teammates along the way,” Smith said.
Reflecting on her last spring league, Martens also loved getting to play alongside her friends, while preparing for their final season together.
“Although the competition in spring league isn’t super intense, it’s such a good way to get reps in and spend time with all the amazing people in our program,” Martens said. “It gave me lots of hope for this next season and the type of dynamic we will have on our team.”