Portland’s Jaylee Pitchford signs with Lansing Community College Volleyball

Recent Portland High School graduate Jaylee Pitchford has signed with Lansing Community College to continue her volleyball career at the next level.

Pitchford finished her days as a Raider with the following accolades:

Highest Serve Percentage in Portland History 97.2%

All-Lansing Area 1st Team (2023)

2x All Academic Honors (2023, 2022)

Portland Most Valuable Player (2023)

When asked about her choice of school, Pitchford said, “From the beginning of choosing a college, I had planned on LCC for a while, even before the volleyball was offered. It just seemed like a great fit for me since I plan on attending MSU after getting my generals out of the way. I wanted to stay close to Portland, and close to the Lansing area and LCC was just the perfect spot to go to both academically and sports wise.”

Pitchford played soccer from kindergarten through her freshman year of high school, but decided to play only volleyball starting her sophomore year. She told the Beacon, “My sophomore year I attended varsity tournaments while playing on JV. I was moved up to varsity for districts my sophomore year, and then played on it for both my junior and senior. I started school volleyball in 7th grade and played club starting in 8th grade.”

Pitchford added, “I would like to include a special thank you to Coach Degroot for helping me develop not only as a player, but also as a person. As well as Coach Zeek for making my senior year as fun as it could be while being the only senior player. Avery Moore, one of my teammates which graduated 2023, also is a huge reason to why I am continuing on and enjoyed volleyball so much over the years, as she accepted me when I was first brought up to JV my freshman year, and later on when I attended tournaments with varsity my sophomore. I am also just extremely excited to start fresh at LCC and hopefully put in the work to help the team accomplish great things in the up and coming fall season.”

This year’s LCC team won the Great Lakes A District with a 30-3 record.