BY MARK MORING, Eastern Shore Post, Oct. 21, 2025
High school gyms are really loud on game nights. The cacophony of rising decibels can make it hard to hear even the person sitting next to you.
But at Northampton High School volleyball games — home or away — one voice always rings out loud and clear. And it comes from the smallest person on the floor.
Abby Zodun, a senior setter for the Yellow Jackets, stands just 5-foot-3. But when she’s exhorting teammates, it’s unmistakable.
“She’s super vocal,” says coach Cathy Doughty. “The crowd noise is tough, so having her out there being loud and directing the plays definitely helps.”
Abby’s vocal cords are worn to a frazzle by the end of most matches.
“She sounds like she’s been chewing gravel after every game,” says her mom, Stephanie, who calls her daughter “small but mighty.”
Evidently, it’s working. Northampton rolled to the Eastern Shore District title by going 6-0 in the league. And now the Jackets (12-5 heading into Thursday night’s game against King & Queen Central) head into the Class 1A regional tournament as the No. 3 seed, hosting Mathews in next Tuesday’s first round.
Doughty thinks the Jackets are peaking at the right time. “It’s a long season and we need to finish strong, so working on the little things now is the key.”
Zodun might be a “little thing” on the floor, but her role is big in Northampton’s success. She has more than 150 assists — setting up attackers for kill shots. She also has almost 100 digs and more than 50 kills and 50 aces.
As a setter, she’s “kind of like a quarterback in football,” says Doughty. “She does a good job distributing the ball to our hitters.”
And in distributing encouragement to the rest of the team.
“I’m the loudest on the court,” Zodun admits. “If you come to one of our games, you’ll definitely hear me yelling. I’m always trying to be really positive, whether we’re winning or losing.”
She says her intensity on the floor “has amped up in the last year or two. My first two years, I was more shy, a little less vocal. But last year and this year, I’ve definitely found my voice.”
Zodun says her competitive spirit spills over to most areas of her life — including karate, in which she has a black belt, and as a member of Northampton’s scholastic bowl and robotics teams.
She’s especially proud of the robotics team, nicknamed Shorebots, which had its most successful season in its 20-year history last spring, finishing 17th out of 112 teams from Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. The team missed qualifying for the World Championships by just a few points.
The competitions are under the umbrella of FIRST Robotics, which holds competitions for youth worldwide. Each year, teams are given a challenge to build a robot with a specific purpose.
“It’s different every year,” says Zodun, who has been on the team since seventh grade. “It’s really interesting because we get to be creative and innovative and have to adapt to whatever the new game is.” This year’s team will learn the new challenge in January.
Abby’s parents — Mike, a cybersecurity expert at SelecTech, and Stephanie, a professor of early childhood education at Eastern Shore Community College — are coaches and mentors for the Shorebots team.
Zodun’s robotics experiences have sparked a desire to major in engineering. She hopes to follow brother Tyler, a junior majoring in engineering at the University of Virginia.
Northampton’s class valedictorian with a 4.52 GPA, Zodun recently applied to UVA, her top choice, and is eagerly awaiting a reply. She is also on track to earn an associate degree in general studies at ESCC in May — before she graduates from high school!
Zodun is particularly eyeing a major in biomedical engineering, combining her interests in medicine and engineering. She’d like to have a career in prosthetics or developing some other kinds of medical devices. “I want to build things that can help people,” she says.
But for now, she’s focused on the volleyball playoffs and taking Northampton as far as it can go.
After she graduates, her legacy of loud will live on. Sister Ashley, a sophomore on the junior varsity team, will move up to varsity next year.
“And she has definitely inherited the loudness gene,” Abby promises.
You heard it here first.
