After having a rough go of it against the Austin Maroons last Friday, the Mac volleyball teams resumed their winning ways with three match victories over the host Travis Rebels on Tuesday night.
The Rebels took the opening set in the varsity match, 25-18, but the Lady Knights rebounded to win the next three sets and the match, 25-19, 25-18 and 25-16.
“The loss in the first set lit a fire under the team,” junior co-captain Lindsey Wiley said, “and we took more responsibility for what needed to get done.”
Coach Amy Brodbeck adjusted the lineup in search of a spark. Wiley said she found one by putting senior Emma Holmes in the game.
“She came in … and had a lot of good passes and digs, on top of aces and hits,” Wiley said.
Freshman Preslie Boswell led the Knights with 13 kills and three aces. Senior Amanda Biscoe recorded 15 assists, and Wiley made 19 digs.
Austin High stands atop the varsity district standings at 4-0. With the loss to Austin as their only district blemish, Mac (3-1) is tied with Ann Richards (3-1) in second place. Crockett (2-1), another district foe in the playoff mix, visits Mac for an important district showdown on Friday night.
“Last year they had a pretty good team,” Wiley said of the Cougars. “It will be tough to beat them this year, but if we bring our A game, I think we’ll do well.”
Prior to the varsity match, the JV Knights swept their Travis counterparts, 25-15, 25-12.
“Our communication and energy were good,” Henson said, “and it helped that we had practiced serve receive today.”
The freshmen also won in straight sets at Travis, 25-6, 25-4.
Photos by Bella Russo.
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![A PRIDE-FUL WEEK OF CELEBRATION:
As part of AISDs week-long celebration of PRIDE, students of the McCallum Spectrum Club worked to create a week full of activities, prizes and helping hands to support the schools LGBTQ+ community. The club is widely available for anyone to join, and specializes in creating a safe space for students to share and give advice. While Pride month itself isn’t until June, AISD designates one week in March to celebrate and commemorate the importance of this part of the student body.
As part of the week of festivities, the club held a booth in the front hall handing out pride stickers, pins and merch to passers by. For junior Zane Joly, the booth idea was brought up as a way for students to engage with one another, and connect with the community.
“I call out to people in the halls, ‘hey, do you want stickers?’” Joly said. “We just give out free pride stickers and sometimes other free pride merch to the students of Macallum because everybody likes pride stickers.”
While the week itself is packed with a variety of different activities, the overall goal is to bring students closer together and create a safer environment for self expression at McCallum.
“The idea for the student panel largely came from the black [history] student panel that is done during Black History Month,” Joly said. “And the idea for giving out free stuff was developed at Spectrum last year.”
Joly is not only a member of the Spectrum club, but also holds a leadership position giving them a more hands-on role with the projects and Pride Week activities.
“McCallum has a very high queer population,” Joly said. “I think Its nice that we get a chance to celebrate Pride because Pride Month is during the summer, and I think its just a nice thing for the community and getting to just celebrate it.”
While the merch table at lunch was only a small part of the numerous parts of McCallum’s Pride week, for Joly this small impact made all the difference.
“The purpose of Pride is to make people not feel alone and to make them feel safe,” Joly said. “The goal is [to make people] happy about a part of themselves that theyre often conditioned to not feel good about.”
Caption by Chloe Lewcock. Photo by Shila Gill.](https://macshieldonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/53597258192_6e7168d8ae_o-1-1200x676.jpg)
