And, now, here she is.
“It’s a bunch of mixed emotions,” Morris said. “It’s such a big, important year. Not only dealing with volleyball, but also with college and finding a school, signing day… it’s a lot coming at once and I still feel like a junior. I feel like we just finished the season and now it’s here again.”
Last year, Morris helped the Mustangs to the Area playoffs. As a setter and right-side hitter, she totaled 189 assists, 140 digs, 61 kills and 22 aces and was a first team, all-district selection.
However, she vividly remembers the disappointment of another season ending in the second round of the postseason. Again. And now she gets one final chance to push the program as far as she thinks it can go.
No matter what happens for the Mustangs this season, Morris will be front and center.
“I’m expecting to be a leader,” she said. “My coach is expecting a lot from me. She wants me to be that voice, be that senior that can lift a team and tell them what needs to be done and how. It’s kind of nerve wracking.
“But I know this is my team. I need to show out and bring my teammates together, especially the younger girls. We want to win. For the past three years, we’ve gone to the second round of the playoffs but we’re trying to go farther than that.”
Morris loves being a setter. Most leaders do.
She loves to control the offense. She relishes teammates looking to her for guidance and coaches trusting her to run the team.
Since she started playing volleyball when she was 11, Morris has always been a setter. It was a natural fit. Meticulous, conscientious and detail-oriented, she welcomed the responsibility that came with a prominent role.
“I like how I get to bring the team together,” Morris said.
A confident, poised young lady who knows who she is and what she’s about, Morris credits her parents, Barbara and Allen, for her makeup.
When Morris was 15 years old, talks with them and her coaches helped her understand she could not afford to get down or hang her head as a setter. As a leader.
So, she developed a counter to adversity. Whenever times get tough during a game, Morris wipes off the bottom of her shoes and stares out into the distance somewhere to reset herself. Mind, body and spirit.
“They’re always hard on me, always strict on me,” Morris said of her parents. “In this world, you have to be strong and confident in everything you do. They’ve taught me to make sure I’m doing everything I have to do to be the best.”
Morris wants to play college volleyball.
“That’s the dream,” she said.
But she doesn’t necessarily care to play for the biggest name or under the brightest of lights. She wants to play for an HBCU, a historically black college and university.
“It’s important, being a black, female athlete,” Morris said. “There’s this idea, you know, that maybe I wouldn’t fit at bigger schools, but there are some really good HBCU schools. I feel like black, female athletes being at one school is a really great thing.”
Strong and confident reasoning. The Morris way.
