Draft Prospect Profile: OPP Myah Conway
Old Dominion found their program's first star when they placed Conway in the drivers' seat of their offense.
The match between Myah Conway and Old Dominion Volleyball was a perfect fit from the start. For the Monarchs, whose volleyball program was still in its infancy when they recruited Conway to play for them, it has borne fruit as she’s turned into a massively productive player in their offense. She’s provided a steady string of kills from the right side, which suits the identity they’re building toward. And Conway, who ran with the opportunity she was provided, could find herself playing in pro ball as a result. In separate conversations with me, both sides described themselves as lucky to have the other.
“I would say I took a leap of faith in them, but they also took a leap in me, so I think it kind of worked out on both ends. Yeah, here I am!” said Conway with a grin when I spoke to her in early May.
She established herself as the team’s number one option as a sophomore, but threw it into another gear in 2023. She was both more efficient and was given increased touches, leading to over 400 kills, while cutting her service errors in half at the same time. That’s due to both her improvements as a player and the team’s emphasis on having great right side play.
“For what we’ve done as a program and where we’re at, we’re very fortunate to have Myah,” said Head Coach Fred Chao. “I think part of that is that we recognized that we can use her - a lot! I think, coming from the men’s side, the opposite typically carries the offensive load on the men’s side. You get good passing outside hitters, they’ll do their part and carry their load, but your opposite hitter is your power hitter, your number one hitter, right?”
“Having Myah here allowed us to kind of play in that model still because she’s our number one power hitter. So, I think part of it was being able to identify and have a setter in Teresa Atilano that could back set her and get the ball to her the majority of the time. So, I think there’s the right combination there to have the right setter with Myah with the right kind of range to get the ball to her and Myah being that good to deliver.”
Chao’s willingness to give Conway the ball has been crucial, not only in the development of her talent, but also in allowing her to realize how good she could be. Once she was able to believe that she could thrive at the college level in Old Dominion’s program, she explained, it became easier to tap into her potential on the court.
“I really had no confidence coming in as a freshman and that played a part in me not playing all the way and not going as hard as I can because I was scared to make mistakes,” she said. “I came out of a very small town, so I didn’t know much. Again, I wasn’t very good. The only skill I had was my height and my length, so I grew as a player by building up skills and finding new ways to score. I think every spring season I found new ways to score and new opportunities to become a better player, and along with that, confidence.”
At this point in her career, no one is surprised when the Monarchs feed the ball to Conway in heavy doses during a game. How, then, does she remain an effective hitter when everyone knows that she’ll get a bulk of the attacks? Well, for one thing, being left-handed opens up an array of shots that she has access to on the right side.
“I love hitting line as a lefty. That’s kind of my favorite shot, so I use that one a lot. I think as a lefty, it’s a lot easier on the right side to hit line. Kind of no matter where the set is, I’m able to turn the ball around and hit different parts of the line, so even with the blocker up there, I’m able to turn the ball around as a lefty and I think it makes it a lot easier than a righty,” she explained.
Another way that she succeeds on the court is with excellent out-of-system work, Chao explained.
“Yeah, the high ball that’s a little inside for her that’s near the net, that’s her jam. She has the runway, she’s worked on getting her feet to the ball there, and for the most part, she can go really high on a block and still hit the ball in. Now, I think she’s started to open up her angular range on those sets as well. Now she can really address the sharp cross-court and really start to manipulate the block. She can say, ‘Hey you guys are gonna have the block way inside,’ and start to open up a line as a lefty on those balls. She’s getting smarter, she has more tools in her toolbox, and so that’s where she’s really helped us.”
“If it wasn’t for that, for her being able to do that, you’re only passing the ball well half the time. What are you doing the rest of the time, or when you’re in a transition situation? So, she’s been able to handle that load for us,” he said.
The theme for Conway this spring was refinement. She’s already proven herself as a competitive DI player, but there are still ways for her to become an even more valuable asset for the Monarchs. For example, as a player with a slender build, she’s had a career-long effort to add good weight to her thin frame.
“She could move pretty fast, but we didn’t know if she’d be durable enough,” said Chao about the early stages of Conway’s recruiting process. “We didn’t know if she’d be durable enough. It didn’t look like she’d be durable enough. It didn’t appear that way.”
The mission to get stronger has continued all the way into this spring.
“This spring, I think the weight room, for everyone in our program, but particularly for Myah. That’s always going to be a thing for Myah because she’s so long, is getting stronger and stronger so she can move those legs faster and faster. The other thing was getting her to understand the difference between scoring and hitting. I think up until a certain level she can get away with just hitting the ball high, deep, over the block, whatever. I think when we run into better teams, they’ll block her, they’ll dig her, or when she gets fatigued and she’s not as high as she normally is,” said Chao.
In addition to adding some more physicality, Conway is trying to become a more nuanced player. She’s making the work to mix up her shot diet, rather than defaulting to the heavier hits she’s more familiar with.
“When I don’t score when I’m tipping it’s definitely frustrating because I just go back to, ‘Wow, I should have just hit that,’ but Coach has taught me this past season that that’s just how you have to play the game. So, it may not work the first time but you’re gonna get the defender thinking and it just creates so much more opportunity to score both ways, so you kinda have to play the game and go back and forth between hard and soft,” she said.
Chao elaborated on another facet of her offensive skillset he’d like to see more often in games.
“As long and as elegant as she plays, there’s an aspect of the game that’s just dirty, and she needs to start the dirty part of the game, if that makes sense. Everything looks good when she plays. Everything is smooth, she’s hitting the ball well and all that. But sometimes you just gotta get up and you gotta jam the ball down, or you gotta just wipe it off the block. You gotta find those dirty scores,” he said.
Although she’s played her entire college career in the Sun Belt Conference, she has had some exposure to the best college competition out there. The difference, as always when playing at a higher level, was the speed of the game. While Conway can see the value of playing quickly, it’s not something she’s entirely at ease doing.
“We’re really working on getting a faster set so I can get more 1-on-1 opportunities and find more ways to score,” said Conway. “I think you get limited opportunity of where you want to hit the ball. It’s kind of where their ball lands, you have to hit it, which I’m not used to. I’m used to being able to see the court and hit wherever I want. So, with a faster set, it’s wherever the ball is set and it’s more risky because it has to kind of be a perfect set to be able to get a great swing. But, on the other hand, you get more 1-on-1 opportunities.”
If a PVF team drafts Conway, she may have to sit on the back burner for the initial part of her professional career. Whether that looks like a short overseas career before being brought back stateside or as a practice player depends on the philosophy of the team in question. However, unless she looks like an entirely more polished player in 2024, I’d expect that a team would want her to continue getting comfortable deploying all her skills in an uptempo offense before giving her playing time at the highest level.
As Coach Chao explained it to me, the idea of playing professionally is new to Conway, but her eyes were opened to it by a team trip to Iberia last summer. Now, she’s excited by the idea.
“Honestly, I didn’t think about playing professionally until the past year. One, I just wasn’t sure of I could get the opportunity to play, and two, I just didn’t know much about it. I think this year, I think it’s amazing how much volleyball has grown as a sport, both overseas and now in the United States,” she expressed. “So, it’s obviously a new option for me. I obviously didn’t think about it that much, but now that it has become an option, I’m really excited and I’m looking forward to any opportunity that takes me to play professionally.”
Some quotes were lightly edited for clarity. To read the full transcript of my interviews with Conway and Chao, click here. To watch a condensed game, click here.