Local professional volleyball player Mckenzie Jacobson enters her third season in the European League

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- At 6 feet and 7 inches tall, Mckenzie Jacobson is recognizably an athlete and her talents have taken her all over the world.

"I started really traveling for volleyball in 2015, in college I went to China for the Pac-12 team. The summer after that Thailand, and the summer after that, Brazil, so I kind of got the travel bug with volleyball a few years ago," she says.

Jacobson won back-to-back valley championships for Clovis West and played division 1 volleyball at the University of Arizona. Having traveled to 14 different countries to play volleyball, the middle blocker is spending her first offseason back home.

"This is the longest I've been back home in Fresno since high school, it's good to just be back home and be with my family."

After graduating college in 2018, she signed with a professional team in Germany. For two years she lived in a small town where no one spoke English.

"They love volleyball, in Germany everyone comes to the games with their beers and they come to the games with these big drums so it's a pretty loud environment. In college we had a lot of fans show up but it was pretty quiet still. Smaller arenas than college but way louder," she says.

The competition level is high in the European League, they train twice a day, 6 days a week. Mckenzie says she has played against former Pac 12 players and enjoys when she gets to re-connect with other Americans. There are only 3 on her team.

"There were 9 different nationalities out of 12 girls. A lot of the girls are on national teams, for Czech, Holland, Slovakia, Croatia."

Her volleyball season was cut short in Germany earlier this year due to COVID-19. Jacobson will be playing in a new country this fall.

"I decided to look for a different club with my agent, and we found a team in France. So I'm really excited we'll be playing in the French league and the European league. "

While it's still undecided if her games will have fans or not, she leaves for France in August. Mckenzie will have to quarantine for two weeks before she's able to start training and playing with her new team.