Middle blocker Abegayle “Abbey” Kearney didn’t try volleyball until she was an eighth grader at Corpus Christi School.
Now a captain of the Palisades High School girls volleyball team, the 6’2” senior is being pursued by numerous colleges. When she spoke to the News on October 26, she had just gotten off the phone with UC Santa Barbara. Other top schools in the chase include UC San Diego, Davis, Loyola Marymount, Northridge, Gonzaga and about 20 more. This is serious recruiting.
Kearney moved from Georgia to the Palisades as an eighth grader with her parents, Dan and Pam, and brother Declan. “I had played tennis and basketball,” she said. “Volleyball wasn’t a big sport there.” But it’s a huge sport in Pacific Palisades, starting in elementary school.
The situation has changed back in Georgia because the high school Kearney would have attended has now won the state championship three years in a row.
She played on the PaliHi varsity team as a sophomore, as well as club volleyball in Santa Monica, and her first college offer came from Ole Miss that year (they mistakenly thought she was a junior).
Why volleyball over the other sports she played? “It’s a place I can come when I’m stressed. I hit the ball as hard as I can,” she said and added, “Volleyball is fun. This team is fun.”
She has high praise for her teammates. “We have so much talent and we’re all super big threats, so the other team doesn’t know where to go.”
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