“Ecstatic,” is how Dexter junior Lia DeMerell felt when she first heard about her team’s new varsity volleyball coach. “She is way more than qualified to coach our team and yet she still shows up to practice every day prepared to coach us hooligans,” says DeMerell.
“She” is Mackenzi Welsh, the new Dexter coach who SETS quite an example for the young Dreadnaughts. Let’s SERVE up a few highlights from her resume.
Welsh was a standout volleyball player at Michigan, starting all four years for the Wolverines and earning All-Big Ten First Team honors in 2019. She finished her career with 5,223 assists, third in Michigan history.
A native of Bolingbrook, Ill., Welsh helped lead her club teams to AAU National Championships in 2013 and 2015. She competed with the USA Volleyball Women’s Junior National Team for the Pan Am Cup in the summer of 2017 and competed with the Women’s Junior National Team for the 2017 FIVB Volleyball Women’s U20 World Championship.
So, yeah, “ecstatic” is putting it perfectly. Let’s pass the ball back over to Lia.
“As a person, she is one of the funniest people I have ever met,” DeMerell says. “I am never truly prepared for what is about to come out of her mouth, and I love it. She may be one to crack a joke that will have us rolling on the floor but that doesn’t take away from her ability to zone in on what our team needs to work on and how our team needs to operate to accomplish our goals. She is such a genuine person and cares about everyone on the team a lot. We are so blessed to have her coach our team this year.”
The feeling is mutual. Welsh is glad to be in Dexter and coaching this talented and passionate team. “I like how we are actively changing the culture of our program,” said Welsh, after her team lost to state-ranked Skyline. “Every one of these players is committed to being the best version of themselves that they can be both on and off the court.”
Welsh has coached in the past, but it’s her first experience running a program. “I played four years at Michigan and it’s quite different being on the other side of things,” she says. “Sometimes, I just want to go out there and do it for them but it’s been really rewarding to see them pick things up and work hard and improve.”
Welsh also liked to see that her team didn’t celebrate just competing with state powerhouse Skyline last week in a 3-0 loss to the visiting Eagles. Skyline reached the Division 1 state finals last year and have the talent to return again this season.
“A loss is a loss and it’s not the preferred outcome,” she says. “It’s good to see that emotional side in them that they realized they could have played better and want to play better. It’s frustrating for me as a coach to watch a loss, but it’s good to see that it’s also frustrating for them because that means they want to get better.”
There is a word that Welsh has been serving up ever since that first day of practice back in August. “Consistency is what we are striving for,” she says. “We want consistency in not just our play but in being good teammates and being good people. We want to be consistent in our skills and playing as a team. We talk about this every day in our practices.
“We have a lot of room to grow and we are capable of playing at that level of volleyball and we proved that in the first set (against Skyline).”
Welsh, who lives in Ann Arbor, is working on her Master’s Degree in social work at U-M. “I love the community in Dexter and how close everyone is,” she says. “The parents and families of our players really support the school and the program and it’s awesome to see. There really is something special about Dexter.”
SEE PHOTO GALLERY FROM DEXTER-SKYLINE GAME
