Lightheart named CUSA offensive player of the week

Conference USA revealed its volleyball weekly awards on Monday, tabbing NM State’s Maggie Lightheart as the offensive player of the week. The junior led her squad while playing six rotations, posting the team’s best individual offensive showing of the year on Friday. Propelled by her stellar performances, the Crimson & White took down Middle Tennessee twice, improving to 6-4 in league play. The award is the first CUSA honor won by an Aggie since 2024. 

Amid two wins over MTSU, Lightheart strung together the best weekend of her career thus far. The junior’s 42 kills in eight sets were good for an average of 5.25 per frame while boasting a .313 hitting percentage. On Friday, she tallied 23 kills on a .429 clip to earn the highest single-match kill total by anyone on the 2025 squad. 

The third-year Aggie paced the offense while also playing from the back row en route to a pair of double-doubles. Amid her career-best showing on Friday, Lightheart notched 12 digs before adding 11 more on Saturday, averaging 2.88 per set. The Mayfield High School product rounded out her weekend with four blocks and two aces, finalizing the series with a back-row kill to clinch a two-match sweep for NM State.

This season, the Las Cruces native leads the team with 264 kills, placing her eighth-highest in the conference. Her 3.14 kills per set are the 10th-most by a CUSA individual, also pacing the Aggie squad. In league play, her numbers have climbed to 3.80 kills per set on a .226 hitting percentage. Over the weekend, she extended her streak of double-digit kills to nine consecutive matches. 

The Mayfield High School product also ranks seventh in all of NCAA Division I with 44 aces this season, averaging 0.52 per set. Her 226 total digs in 2025 are second to only libero Makayla Martinez, with the series against the Blue Raiders bumping her season average to 2.69 per frame. Finally, Lightheart has rounded out her defensive showing with 44 blocks this campaign, boosted by a career-best five versus New Mexico last month. 

The award was the first weekly honor won by NM State this season and the first since Kacia Brown was named defensive player of the week on Oct. 21, 2024. Two Aggies were named offensive player of the week a season ago, with both coming in September. Lightheart became the third different Aggie to earn the offensive distinction since the program joined CUSA in 2023. That fall, the local product was named to the CUSA all-freshman team, with Monday’s announcement further adding to her trophy case.