Abbie Lesher wanted nothing to do with volleyball when she was younger, or so she thought.
Abbie, who is gearing up for her senior season at Cocalico, spent endless hours around volleyball as a child. Her mother, Jamie Lesher, coached the sport at Ephrata when Abbie was just a baby.
With her mother on the sidelines, Abbie was often watched by high schoolers and found her way into an empty ball bin.
“They were drug along to everything,” said Jamie on bringing Abbie and her brother, Mason, to the gym. “They were sitting in the gym, being held by high schoolers.”
The natural step for a child growing up around a sport is to pursue it when they’re of age, too.
For Abbie, it was the opposite.
“I grew up saying ‘I hate volleyball, I’ll never play that sport,’ ” she said.
There was no desire to play volleyball, a sport she had been around since she was an infant.
Instead, Abbie looked to soccer, gymnastics and theater to keep her occupied.
When she was 8 years old, Abbie was in a performance of “Aladdin” with her best friend and now-teammate, Jaclyn Niven.
Abbie spent numerous hours on stage at the Ephrata Performing Arts Center and graced the stage at Dutch Apple on many occasions.
As Abbie got older, she was faced with a decision.
“When you do theater, it is 24/7,” said Jamie, who is entering her fourth season as Cocalico’s coach. “So, if she would have stayed in theater, she could not have played a sport.”
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But with COVID ending her soccer season and the time commitment of gymnastics, Abbie decided it was time for something new.
“I was like, ‘I’m done with soccer,’ because I’d taken a break because of COVID,” Abbie said. “So, then she (her mom) was like, ‘Volleyball this, volleyball that.’ ”
Before her seventh-grade year, Abbie, Jamie, Mason and Abbie’s father, Brian, who also coached volleyball at Ephrata, entered a quads tournament as a team.
“It was terrible,” Abbie said with a laugh. “I had never played volleyball before. Our plan was ‘keep the ball away from Abbie.’ ”
Terrible or not, Abbie did a complete 180 and decided to try volleyball, much to her mother’s surprise.
Since then, Abbie, coached by her mother for all her seasons except for one, has turned into an integral player for the Eagles on and off the volleyball court.
Family matters
Abbie said she feels the magnitude of being the coach’s daughter. But she also knows that there is no one else she’d rather have at the helm.
“Honestly, I think her coaching me works so well because of how well she knows me,” Abbie said. “People react very differently to types of coaches and personally I need someone who’s very tough on me and very assertive when I need it.”
Like any mother and daughter or coach and player, the two occasionally butt heads.
“They recover very quickly,” said Niven, who has had a front-row seat to the relationship between Abbie and Jamie over the years. “They’ve got a very tight bond.”
Cocalico’s Jaclyn Niven, left, and Abigail Lesher during the Lancaster-Lebanon League girls volleyball media day in Lancaster on Monday August4, 2025.
However, both recognize the growth in the other since Abbie’s freshman season.
“I used to get really frustrated at myself and take it out on her,” Abbie said. “I’ve learned that all it does is make both of us mad, and it’s not worth it.”
Jamie reflected on how the post-match conversations in the ride home in Abbie’s first year looks compared to how they are now.
“I would harp too much,” Jamie said. “Versus now, I really try to start with the positives and wait for her to say, ‘Well, what could I have done?’ That was a learning experience.”
For both Abbie and Jamie, balance is key. There is a time and place to talk volleyball, but it isn’t a hot topic outside of the gym.
“I do feel like we’ve learned that dynamic of balance,” Jamie said.
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A newfound appreciation
About halfway through her junior season, Abbie was hit with a broken foot, sidelining her for the rest of the season.
Her injury came at a point in her career where she had grown frustrated with the sport and is something that she looks at now as a “blessing in disguise.”
“She got a newfound love of volleyball when she broke that foot,” said Jamie.
“Volleyball was getting to be pretty heavy,” Abbie said. “And I think when I broke my foot, it was very eye opening.”
Cocalico scrambled to find a way to fill the gap that was left after Abbie’s injury. The Eagles missed not only her on-court talent, but also her leadership.
“Abbie carries a lot of leadership on and off the court,” said Niven, who had to take on the brunt of the leadership after Abbie’s injury. “It’s more cohesive when she’s on the court.
Cocalico finished 6-6 in 2024, struggling to fill the void that was left without its leader with three or so weeks left in the season.
“The team needed to figure out how to fill her shoes,” Jamie said. “We just didn’t have enough time.”
Despite the season-ending injury, Abbie was a Lancaster-Lebanon League Section Two first-team all-star.
She is a Swiss army knife of sorts for Cocalico. She’ll do anything and play anywhere on the court, whether that’s being a setter or an outside hitter with just a 5-foot-2 frame.
Not only is Abbie back healthy for her senior season, but she also brings a new appreciation for volleyball with her.
There is a new feeling around the Eagles entering the 2025 season.
“Sometimes, we get complacent with easy roll shots,” Jamie said. “But this year we are aggressively serving, aggressively hitting.”
The level of intensity in practices and drills has risen, one of the biggest changes from previous seasons.
Cocalico has also seen more returning players at open gyms over the summer, something that both Jamie and Abbie say they think will pay dividends come the fall.
“I think it’s going to work wonders for the season as a whole,” Abbie said.
From not wanting to pick up a volleyball to being a standout player in the L-L, Abbie’s story still makes her and her mother laugh.
Even with the pressure of being the coach’s kid, Abbie Lesher wouldn’t have it any other way.
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