App State Volleyball head coach Chad Sutton announced the schedule for the 2025 season, his first in charge of the Mountaineers.

This fall’s slate will feature a nonconference tournament, a pair of nonconference midweek matches and eight home conference matchups. The Mountaineers’ nonconference slate will feature clashes with a trio of ACC opponents and a clash with Big 10 contender Michigan State.

Season tickets are available to purchase and renew for $65. App State faculty and staff have the opportunity to redeem a discount for a $35 season ticket by calling the ticket office at 828-262-7733. Fans interested in courtside seats may also call the ticket office for availability.

​​”I am really excited for this schedule,” Sutton said. “We have a strong non conference slate composed of P4’s and high RPI mid-major opponents. I believe this will be critical to our development and help prepare us to compete in the Sun Belt, while pursuing our goal of reaching the NCAA Tournament.”

The Mountaineers will open non conference play at the College of Charleston Classic. App State will take on Mercer in that event on Aug. 29 before challenging the College of Charleston and Eastern Kentucky on Aug. 30.

The Black and Gold will open its home slate with a midweek clash against Elon on Sept. 2 in the Holmes Convocation Center. App State will take on VCU and Virginia in the Cavalier Classic in Charlottesville, Va. (Sept. 5-6) before heading down to Kennesaw, Ga., for the Kennesaw State Invitational (Sept. 12-13) to clash with Michigan State and Kennesaw State. On Sept. 16, App State will head to Chapel Hill for a midweek clash against North Carolina before hosting the Mountaineer Classic on Sept. 19-21 in Holmes. The tournament will feature a clash with Duke on Sept. 19 and a match against Davidson on Sept. 21.

App State’s conference slate will feature eight home matches, beginning with a pair of matches against James Madison on Sept. 26 and 27. The Mountaineers will travel to Lafayette, La., to challenge Louisiana on Oct. 3 and 4 before returning to the High Country to host Old Dominion on Oct. 10 and 11. After stops in Statesboro, Ga., and Conway, S.C., to take on Georgia Southern (Oct. 16 and 17) and Coastal Carolina (Oct. 24 and 25), the Mountaineers will return to Boone to host Georgia State on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. The regular season slate will wrap up with a pair of road matches against Marshall (Nov. 6 and 7) and a weekend in Boone against Troy (Nov. 14 and 15).

The Sun Belt Tournament is scheduled for Nov. 20-23 in Foley, Ala.

{Information provided by Appalachian State Athletics}

Men’s Volleyball Nations League (VNL) 2025 – schedule, results and scores

All start times listed in local time

Preliminary round week 1 (11 – 15 June)

11 June 2025

Pool 1 in Quebec City, Canada (EDT, GMT-4)

• 11:00 – Bulgaria vs Italy
• 16:30 – Argentina vs France
• 20:00 – Germany vs Canada

Pool 2 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (BRT, GMT-3)

• 14:00 – Ukraine vs USA
• 17:30 – Brazil vs Islamic Republic of Iran
• 21:00 – Slovenia vs Cuba

Pool 3 in Xi’an, People’s Republic of China (CST, GMT+8)

• 13:30 – Poland vs Netherlands
• 17:00 – People’s Republic of China vs Japan
• 20:30 – Serbia vs Türkiye

12 June 2025

Pool 1 in Quebec City, Canada (EDT, GMT-4)

• 16:30 – Germany vs Italy
• 20:00 – Argentina vs Canada

Pool 2 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (BRT, GMT-3)

• 17:30 – Brazil vs Cuba
• 21:00 – USA vs Islamic Republic of Iran

Pool 3 in Xi’an, People’s Republic of China (CST, GMT+8)

• 17:00 – People’s Republic of China vs Serbia
• 20:30 – Poland vs Japan

13 June 2025

Pool 1 in Quebec City, Canada (EDT, GMT-4)

• 16:30 – Bulgaria vs Argentina
• 20:00 – France vs Italy

Pool 2 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (BRT, GMT-3)

• 17:30 – Ukraine vs Cuba
• 21:00 – Islamic Republic of Iran vs Slovenia

Pool 3 in Xi’an, People’s Republic of China (CST, GMT+8)

• 17:00 – Japan vs Serbia
• 20:30 – Netherlands vs Türkiye

14 June 2025

Pool 1 in Quebec City, Canada (EDT, GMT-4)

• 16:30 – Canada vs France
• 20:00 – Bulgaria vs Germany

Pool 2 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (BRT, GMT-3)

• 10:00 – Ukraine vs Brazil
• 13:30 – USA vs Slovenia

Pool 3 in Xi’an, People’s Republic of China (CST, GMT+8)

• 15:00 – People’s Republic of China vs Netherlands
• 19:00 – Türkiye vs Poland

15 June 2025

Pool 1 in Quebec City, Canada (EDT, GMT-4)

• 11:00 – Argentina vs Italy
• 14:30 – Germany vs France
• 18:00 – Bulgaria vs Canada

Pool 2 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (BRT, GMT-3)

• 10:00 – Brazil vs Slovenia
• 13:30 – Ukraine vs Islamic Republic of Iran
• 17:00 – Cuba vs USA

Pool 3 in Xi’an, People’s Republic of China (CST, GMT+8)

• 11:30 – Netherlands vs Japan
• 15:00 – People’s Republic of CHina vs Türkiye
• 19:00 – Poland vs Serbia

Courtesy: UCLA Athletics

SAN FRANCISCO — The Olympic Club announced late Saturday night that UCLA freshman attacker Ryder Dodd (Long Beach, Calif./JSerra Catholic HS) has been named the 2025 Peter J. Cutino Award winner. The Cutino Award is an iconic honor in NCAA water polo that recognizes the best men’s and women’s players each year.

Dodd became the first Bruin to claim the prize since attacker Nicolas Saveljic was awarded the trophy in 2021 for the 2020 season, which like the 2024 campaign, culminated with a National Championship win over USC. He is also just the fourth different Bruin and the fifth overall winner on the UCLA men’s side, joining Garret Danner who won the award in 2016, and Sean Kern, who claimed the title in 1998 and 1999, the first two Cutino Awards ever presented.

Dodd helped the Bruins (26-2) win the 2024 NCAA Men’s Water Polo Championship, the 13th in UCLA’s storied history. Named a First-Team All-American in 2024, he scored twice in the NCAA Championship game, the Bruins’ fourth win of the season over the Trojans.

The win also marked the fifth NCAA Championship for UCLA Head Coach Adam Wright while in charge of the Men’s Water Polo team, with all five titles coming against USC. It is Wright’s ninth NCAA title overall, as he also won two as a player at UCLA (1999 and 2000), one last year with the women’s program (2024), and one more as an assistant coach with the women’s team in 2009.
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Dodd wrote himself into the MPSF record books this past season when he scored a league-record 102 goals. It was also a UCLA freshman record and the second-most goals scored in school history. He also added 32 assists to lead the MPSF in scoring with 134 points. He also led the MPSF in sprints won (46) while finishing second on the Bruin squad in steals (32) and field blocks (11), and third in drawn exclusions (30). Named the ACWPC National Player of the Year, he also was chosen as the MPSF Player and Newcomer of the Year, the first person in league history to earn both honors in the same season.

Dodd, who was named the MVP of the NCAA Championship, scored in all 28 games of his rookie season, with multiple goals in all but one. A four-time MPSF weekly award honoree, earning Delfina MPSF West Player of the Week and S&R Sport Newcomer of the Week twice each, he scored a career-best eight goals in an 18-12 win at then-No. 7 Pepperdine (Oct. 12). Dodd, the only freshman on the Delfina All-MPSF First Team, is UCLA’s sixth all-time MPSF Player of the Year recipient (Rafael Real Vergara-2023, Garrett Danner-2015-16, Scott Davidson-2009, Sean Kern-2000) and is the fourth Bruin to earn MPSF Newcomer of the Year (Ben Liechty-2023, Makoto Kenney-2020, Garrett Danner-2013).

The other two finalists on the men’s side included Max Miller (USC) and Mihailo Vukazic (Pacific).

What’s in a (domain) name?

Within an hour of Judge Claudia Wilken having granted final approval of the House v. NCAA settlement, the newly established College Sports Commission’s website went live, featuring a homepage headline declaring “a new day in college sports” beside a picture of female water polo players.

The commission, which was established by the NCAA’s Power Five conferences—the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and Pac-12—to police college athlete NIL transactions, registered as a Delaware limited liability company in April, as Sportico was first to report.

This sets the College Sports Commission (CSC) apart from the numerous nationally recognized “commissions,” many of which are government agencies—such as the FEC, FTC, FCC and the other SEC—or federally recognized nonprofit organizations exempt from income tax.

Aside from a small number of postseason football bowl games, the CSC is also unique in being the only for-profit governing body, association or multi-school organization in college sports. That means unlike the NCAA, its member intuitions and major conferences—all of which are federally registered 501(c)(3) organizations—the commission is not legally bound to operate for exclusively charitable purposes; does not have to publicly disclose its annual tax return (that includes financial details such as its annual legal expenditures or the compensation of its new CEO, Bryan Seeley); and faces no restrictions on its involvement in political campaigns.

However, the CSC’s website lends a different impression, starting with its URL: www.CollegeSportsCommission.org. Although any entity can register or use dot-org domain extensions, they typically and historically are associated with nonprofits. Notably, if paradoxically, all but one of the P5 conferences (BigTen.org) now employ dot-com domains for their official sites (SECSports.com, Big12Sports.com, theACC.com and Pac-12.com) even though each of the leagues are 501(c)(3) charities.

In an email, a commission spokesperson told Sportico that despite its legal structure, it is “not intended to be a for-profit company.”

The CSC obtained its website’s URL on April 2—a week-and-a-half before its Delaware LLC was formed. Simultaneously, as confirmed by the spokesperson, it also obtained a dot-com version. Nevertheless, CollegeSportsCommission.com is currently a parked domain that does not redirect to the active, dot-org site.

On its FAQ page, the CSC describes itself as “the organization overseeing the new system that allows schools to share revenue directly with student-athletes and ensures that NIL deals made with student-athletes are fair and comply with the rules.” While it distinguishes itself from the NCAA, the current version of the site offers little clarity about who controls the commission or how it is structured. Notably, its official legal name—College Sports Commission LLC—does not appear anywhere on the site, including in the “Terms of Service” or “Privacy Policy.”

Meanwhile, the website for the NIL Go system, managed by Deloitte, uses a dot-com domain name. According to the CSC spokesperson, the domain was initially purchased by Deloitte on behalf of the joint NCAA/P5 settlement implementation committee, and is now in the process of transferring ownership to the commission. Meanwhile, the dot-com website for the College Athlete Payments (CAP) platform, developed by LBi Software and “overseen” by the commission, is owned by LBi.