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PHILIPPI, W.Va (WV News) — Philip Barbour’s MacKenna Halfin ended a storybook career of high school volleyball with a third Class AA state title in four years last week. She and the rest of the senior Colts made the state championship match in all four seasons. In the state tournament, MacKenna had 20 or more kills in all three matches, totaling 67 kills in 11 sets while also collecting 41 total digs. “I think that once that switch flipped, she just started swinging,” Philip Barbour coach Heather Halfin said. “The passes got better, but I honestly felt like she couldn’t be stopped.” Coach Halfin calls her one of the most dominant players she has coached. It’s a pretty tall order considering the program has now won seven state titles and has been to the state tournament for 23 consecutive seasons. “I think that she’s one of the best,” coach Halfin said. “I’ve seen some really good players come through my program and others that are incredibly solid players. When I evaluate a player, I try to look at the total player. It’s not just how hard they hit the ball or how well they serve or set. I try not to just pick one aspect. I try to look at everything, and MacKenna is truly a total player.” Her career closes with unreal stat totals — 2,058 kills, 1,590 digs, 357 blocks, 151 aces and over 1,233 serve receives. With MacKenna serving as a middle in her final three seasons, coach Halfin calls her stats the stuff of legend. “I would chance to say that there are only a few middle blockers in West Virginia that have hit 2,000 kills,” coach Halfin said. “McKenzie Carpenter did for me. If you find more, they are usually the players that coaches are still talking about — Aana Wherry from Parkersburg and Cameron Yoho from Tyler Consolidated are two I can think of. To get to that number as a middle is unheard of. Those players are legends.” Her reasoning is due to MacKenna playing an unconventional position for a team’s strongest hitter. More often than not, that player plays on the outside and receives the more optimal set. “If you go to a hitting camp, you’ll have 75 out of 100 kids playing outside hitter,” coach Halfin said. “Because that push outside is an easier ball to adjust to, she has learned to adjust to sets coming from different areas of the floor.” Instead, MacKenna, as a middle blocker, is a centerpiece of the defense while also being a player that can read the floor from multiple angles and send the ball in either direction. “She can pound the ball from everywhere and cut the ball like no one I’ve ever seen,” coach Halfin said. “That’s something that her national and other travel coaches have pointed out about her — Anyone can be a good hitter with a good setter, but she adjusts so well to anything she is given. “That’s not an indictment of our setters, though,” coach Halfin continued. “They are trying to force the ball to her in the middle. If you watch high-level volleyball, you know that the ball is set to the outside more often than not. It’s the easiest set.” It shows that her game has plenty of potential as she will play volleyball collegiately next fall. “I’m confident that if she was an outside hitter, she could’ve had 3,000 kills,” coach Halfin said. “I think it makes her a more versatile player because she is able to get to any ball and kill it. I’ve seen her get a ball from everywhere on the court.” But while MacKenna will hit a ball with the force that makes players scatter, her defensive prowess sets her apart. “She struggled a little bit in the beginning of the championship game, but her back-row play has gotten really good,” coach Halfin said. “We’ll watch college games, and she can tell you exactly where the ball is going to be hit. She reads the court so well, and that makes a good player. She can read every spot.” Coach Halfin is quick to point out just how impressive 1,000 digs can be for any player, but she then points to how it is especially impressive for hitters to reach that mark. “Back row is out of your control,” coach Halfin said. “You are adjusting to where the other team is placing the ball. Any time that someone digs the ball 1,000 times, you have kept someone from a point 1,000 times. It’s impressive.” MacKenna, a middle blocker, had over 1,500. “Having 1,000 good digs is insane when it’s not your only job,” coach Halfin said. “It’s impressive when a libero or defensive specialist does it, but when you wear multiple hats, it becomes super. Any front row player getting that is impressive.” With the end of MacKenna’s career comes the end of coach Halfin’s time coaching her daughter. She calls her a true competitor and looks forward to watching her continue to grow. “She’s been listening to me gripe as a coach since she started going on trips with me,” coach Halfin said. “I remember her being in an infant seat and coming along. I don’t really think there was a turning point for her competitiveness until she was a freshman.” Coach Halfin points back to a team camp in the summer before MacKenna’s freshman season. “She had let a ball drop to the floor,” coach Halfin said. “She didn’t play it because someone called it out, which I didn’t know. I jumped all over her, ‘We don’t let a ball drop. You should know that.’ Of course, you’re always harder on your kids.” “She looked at me and was tearing up,” coach Halfin said. “So I took her out until she was okay. After the game, I remember looking at her and telling her that when she’s on the court, I am no longer her mother. I am coach. I told her to let me coach her.” “Alyssa Hill was a senior that year, and she just goes, ‘Listen MacKenna, your mom has made all of us cry at some point,’” coach Halfin said. “And I was like, no way. And then Emily (Denison) raises her hand and says, ‘Raise your hand if Halfin has made you cry,’ and they all did. After that, she realized not to take coaching personally.” Four years later, MacKenna will be remembered as one of the best to ever do it. “I would say that it’s hard to be her because she’s my kid,” coach Halfin said. “I have big shoulders, so people can say what they want to. She’s earned every second she was on the floor. There was never a question. She has also shared me as a mom since she has been alive, so that is hard, too. Once she got used to it, it all worked out.”NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A lopsided, shutout loss has left the beat-up New Orleans Saints limping into the final two games of a lost season — and into a rather cloudy future beyond that. Saints interim coach Darren Rizzi figured that a visit to playoff-bound Green Bay would be a tall order for his injury-riddled squad, whose prominent missing players included starters at quarterback, running back and receiver. And when New Orleans' mostly healthy defensive front struggled against a Packers ground game led by running back Josh Jacobs, the rout was on. Nothing "stuck out on film other than a lack of execution and lack of playmaking,” Rizzi said Tuesday after reviewing video of Monday night's 34-0 loss at Green Bay . “We played against a playoff team, at their place, that has very few holes on their team,” Rizzi added. “It was a little bit of a perfect storm." Rizzi, a special teams coordinator who has made no secret that he sees his eight-game interim stint as an opportunity to further his head-coaching ambitions, has two more games left in what has been an up-and-down audition. The Saints are 3-3 on his watch, which includes one of New Orleans' most lopsided losses since the turn of the century. With the playoffs unattainable, and with a lot of reserves pressed into service, the final two weeks will serve primarily as a player-evaluation period heading into the offseason, when there are bound to be myriad changes on the roster and perhaps the coaching staff. Rizzi said the Saints, realistically, have been in evaluation mode “for the last month or so,” but added that there maybe be additional young or practice-squad players getting longer looks in the final two games. “My big thing this week is to see how we can respond,” Rizzi said. “We’re going to find out a lot about a lot of people.” Of the Saints' four punts, three were inside the Green Bay 20 and New Orleans did not allow a single punt return yard. The punt team might have been the only unit that executed its job (even the kickoff unit allowed a 38-yard return). The Saints had trouble protecting the quarterback (three sacks) and protecting the football (two turnovers). They couldn't run the ball (67 yards). They couldn't stop the run (188 yards allowed). They couldn't pass the ball consistently (129 yards) or stop the pass when they needed to. As former Saints coach Jim Mora once said, they couldn't do “ diddly poo .” Although rookie quarterback Spencer Rattler largely struggled and was responsible for both New Orleans turnovers, he had enough highlights — including a jumping, first-down pass on third-and-long — to keep him penciled in as the starter if the injured Derek Carr remains unable to play, Rizzi said. “It was definitely a performance where we got to take the good with the bad,” Rizzi said. “We've got to get rid of those negative plays.” New Orleans native Foster Moreau has emerged as one of the Saints' most reliable offensive players. The sixth-year NFL tight end made two catches for a team-high 33 yards on Monday night, giving him 25 catches for 335 yards this season. His four TDs receiving entering the game remain tied for the team lead. Rizzi was riding high after two wins to start his interim term as head coach, but Monday night's ugly loss is the club's third in four games and took a lot of luster off his candidacy for a longer-term appointment. Center Erik McCoy left the game with an elbow injury, while guard Lucas Patrick hurt his knee in the closing minutes. Rizzi said McCoy won't need surgery but could miss the rest of the season. The coach said Patrick needs more tests but is not expected to play again this season. While the chances of Carr (non-throwing, left hand) or top running back Alvin Kamara (groin) playing again this season appear slim, the Saints have declined to rule that out. Rizzi said Carr is getting closer to being able to play and wants the opportunity to go against his former team, the Las Vegas Raiders. Meanwhile, Rizzi said Kamara “is working his tail off to try to come back” this season. “Alvin told me this morning, in my office, that he really would like to play again,” Rizzi said. 24 — The number of years since the Saints suffered a more lopsided shutout loss, 38-0 against San Francisco in 2002. The Saints' home finale against lowly Las Vegas will be an anticlimactic affair bound to generate a level of fan interest similar to, if not less than, a preseason game. But the game will be important to the current regime, which needs victories in each of the club's final two games to avoid the franchise's worst record since it was displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and went 3-13. AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL