In the days after he watched Rya McKinnon tally a program-record 30 kills in a five-set win over George Mason, Howard coach Shaun Kupferberg had a simple message for his sophomore outside hitter.
Kupferberg did not want McKinnon to ever do that again.
Make no mistake, Kupferberg wasn’t being critical of his sophomore outside hitter. He was impressed by the eye-opening number as much as anyone. But the circumstances under which McKinnon accumulated that total were not ideal.
The Bison (3-3) have been beset by injuries in the early going, so depth already was an issue, and Kupferberg was using a makeshift starting lineup. Eventually, Kupferberg said, he was out of subs. In fact, Howard played a point in the fifth set with only five players on the court.
All of that conspired to have the Bison lean on the 2022 MEAC freshman and player of the year a little more than they would have liked.
“Honestly, we don’t want her getting 30 kills,” said Kupferberg, in his 11th season at the historically Black school and coming off a 20-10 effort in 2022. “I said, ‘I hope you never break that record because we should never be setting you that much.’ ”
Be that as it might, the performance…
