After Big Senior Season, Mary Seems All Set
Mary Martin
• School: Dunbar High
• Grade: 12
• Sports: Volleyball
• Academics: Mary has a 4.7037 weighted GPA and has taken two A.P. classes and two dual credit college courses.
• Parents: Donna & Mark
The turning point for Dunbar High senior Mary Martin came after her sophomore volleyball season.
At that time, Mary was known more as a hard-hitting first baseman on the softball team. Softball was her first love and she had played on the Dunbar varsity since seventh grade.
In volleyball, she was just another girl playing on the JV. But her athleticism caught the eye of Chris Beerman, head of the Lexington United Volleyball club.
He invited her to join the club and a volleyball star was made.
Working with Dunbar Coach Jenni Morgan, Mary became a versatile and valuable volleyball player.
As a junior playing right side hitter and setter, Mary helped Dunbar reach the Regional final and earned Most Improved on the team and second team All-City honors.
In 2014, Mary assumed all setting duties for Dunbar and, at 5-foot-11, could still play the front row.
Dunbar won the Regional championship to advance to the State tournament where the Bulldogs reached the Final Four.
Mary was named to the State All-Tournament team, earned Dunbar’s Coach’s and Senior awards and was first team All-City.
As the setter, Mary is like a point guard in basketball, feeding the ball to the hot hand. That’s a role she relishes.
“I like being in control and I’m a good decision maker,” she said. “I can take matters into my own hands.”
Highlights abounded for Dunbar, including beating chief rival Henry Clay in the Regionals. Mary clinched the winning point with an ace.
Competitive but cool under pressure, Mary takes the same attributes that led to volleyball success into the classroom.
She has a 4.7037 weighted GPA., has taken two A.P. classes and two dual credit college courses. Not surprisingly, math is her strongest subject – her mother Donna is a math teacher at Dunbar.
Mary has served for four years on Dunbar’s Gender Equity Council to ensure that the school complied with Title IX regulations for sports.
She loves the outdoors – fishing, kayaking and four-wheeling – and is equally at home as an artist working with pottery, glass mosaics, and crafts such as crochet and basket weaving.
She plans to play volleyball in college and is still weighing her options.
She will have no trouble with the academics wherever she attends.
Said her mother Donna: “She is a hard-worker, tackles assignments right away and is an excellent time manager.”
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