Gophers volleyball lands Makenna Crosson, No. 8 recruit in the country for 2026

Makenna Crosson, who verbally committed to the Gophers volleyball team on Monday afternoon, has no patience for a lack of competitiveness.

“Family night. Board games. Monopoly. I hate losing,” she said after committing. “I want to surround myself with people who really like to win.”

It will take a few years for that fire to show up at Maturi Pavilion, but the No. 8 recruit in the country for the class of 2026, according to PrepVolleyball.com, knew this was where she wanted to be. Crosson is a rangy outside hitter, “6-3 with volleyball shoes on,” as she put it, who knows her game is in development.

“One of the main things I bring is ball control and passing,” she said. “You can look at me and say, ‘She’s undersized,’ ‘cause I know a lot of outsides are 6-4, 6-5, but ball-control-wise I have been working on my passing and making sure it’s at the highest level it can be.”

She already knows to hit off the block — hitting off or around her defenders to find advantages on the attack. “I actually make the defense play defense.”

Crosson plays for Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, Calif., where her coach is Jon Wallace, the former longtime head coach at Santa Clara. Wallace also coaches Crosson’s club team, Vision Volleyball Club.

It’s all part of a deep history of the game that Crosson has inherited and built. That history already has ties to the U.

Her father is Sam Crosson, the former coach at Cal who is now the coach at West Valley College and has a lengthy history with Keegan Cook dating back to when they both were at St. Mary’s. Crissy Jones Schoonderwoerd, the Gophers assistant coach who was the interim head coach for Cal last season, worked for Sam Crosson when he was the head coach at Cal. Makenna also got to know Gophers assistant coach Kristen Kelsay through training with USA Volleyball.

Makenna did her research. She said her calendar the last two weeks since recruiting opened was packed, but she also knew what her No. 1 school was.

“Keegan offered and I accepted, and it was a seven-minute phone call,” she said. “Then I talked to the whole staff again.”

She joins a growing list of attackers who have committed to Cook in one way or another in the 18 months since he took over as head coach.

His 2025 class features Carly Gilk and Kelly Kinney, two highly touted recruits who mirror each other on opposite sides of the court. He also added outside hitter Alex Acevedo through the transfer portal this offseason from Oregon; she has four years of eligibility remaining.

Crosson said she wants to be a part of that kind of gym, where high-level expertise is the expectation.

“I would like to win a national championship. I would like to be an All-American,” she said. “I understand how much work that takes, and I want to put that in, and I want to prove to everyone that I have worked hard and this is the school that I deserve to be going to. I want to be surrounded by competitive people.”