Rose basketball highlights
Mirra makes her mark with commitment
TUE| 11-7-23 | SPORTS
Senior and varsity volleyball player Madison Mirra committed to East Carolina University (ECU) in August. Mirra has been playing volleyball since the fifth grade and is excited to take her talents to the next level this upcoming year.
Mirra became interested in volleyball when her best friend started playing and encouraged her to try it. Since then, Mirra has fallen in love with the sport and has played for East Carolina Junior Varsity Club (ECJVC) for five years. She decided to transfer to Triangle Volleyball Club in Raleigh this season to get more experience in higher-level volleyball.
“The level of competition [at Triangle] is going to prepare me for college volleyball,” Mirra said.
Mirra has played volleyball on a variety of teams with varying skill levels, but has only experienced one major challenge. She is a very determined and competitive player, so when the game was not going as she wanted she struggled with attitude shifts.
“I used to have a very bad attitude problem when I was younger and I would cry on the court, so I had to get through that,” Mirra said.
Graphic by Elliott Flinchbaugh
After years of playing with various teams and having very successful seasons, Mirra realized she didn’t want her passion for the sport to come to an end.
“I was very indecisive at first, but after our national tournament that [my ECJVC team] qualified for this year, it made me realize I didn’t want to stop playing after high school,” Mirra said
Mirra began the recruitment process the summer of her junior year but got serious about it this
year. Through this long process, Mirra realized how much work you have to put in to be noticed by colleges.
“To be honest, it was just a very boring process,” Mirra said. “It was a lot of work that I didn’t want to do, but when I started getting college coaches to talk to me it felt worth it.”
During this process, Mirra contacted ECU to show she was interested. After this, ECU coaches started to come to her tournaments to watch her performance during a game.
“They came to some qualifiers and bigger tournaments,” Mirra said. “I had been reaching out to them at the beginning of the year, but then they finally came and started watching me more.”
After this long process, Mirra finally received an offer from ECU in August.
“I was in the Dominican Republic on a mission trip and I was sitting in a hammock,” Mirra
said. “When he called me [to] offer me a spot, the hammock broke and I fell on the ground, I said yes and was really excited, and immediately called my mom.”
Mirra decided that ECU was best for her because it is right around the corner from home.
“I liked the idea of it being close to home and as much fun as it sounds going out of state, I just like being close to home,” Mirra said.
Mirra has a goal of getting some playing time while playing for ECU and she is also very excited about about the new atmosphere.
“A new team is what I’m really excited to have and just a new experience with better competition and higher level volleyball,” Mirra said.
Although Mirra is going to miss playing Rose volleyball, she is excited for this new experience of higher level and more competitive volleyball.
“I’ll definitely miss me teammates and the atmosphere and being comfortable at Rose, but I’m excited to see where playing at ECU will take me,” Mirra said.
