The Syracuse volleyball team is complete, and the 2025 squad has arrived on campus for summer classes and workouts. The Orange welcome 11 newcomers to the 2025 squad which returns seven from last year’s team than went 15-17 overall and 3-17 in the ACC.
“We are very excited about this new group that is coming in because we feel like it’s a good mix of really young and talented players and some athletes coming in with experience previously competing at a high level around the country,” Syracuse head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam said. “We truly invested a lot of time and effort into this class, not just evaluating them based on how good they are as athletes but even more how good they are as people. We really paid attention to making sure we recruited the right characters.”
Syracuse welcomes five middle blockers in Marisse Turner, Kaliya Ndiaye, Oreva Evivie, Soana Lea’ea and Mari Lawton. Outside hitters Marie Laurio, Elizabeth Turner and Gabriella McLaughlin will help strengthen the Orange attack while SU also adds defensive specialist Reese Teves and Rana Yamada. Additionally, Syracuse added setter Tehya Maeva this offseason, a junior transfer from Nevada by way of San Diego, California.
Marisse Turner is a 6-foot graduate transfer from Long Beach, CA. Turner attended Marymount High School and joins the Orange from California State University – Fullerton where she appeared in 49 sets across 14 matches. Ndiaye is a 6-foot-4 middle blocker from Aliso Viejo, CA. She played at Santa Margarita Catholic where she helped SMHS to a 25-15 record a s a senior.
Evivie is a 6-foot middle blocker from Charlotte, NC, who began her collegiate career at Virginia Tech before spending her final two seasons of undergrad at FGCU where she helped the Eagles to a 27-5 overall record and a 15-1 mark in the Atlantic Sun Conference appearing in all 32 matches as a senior in 2024.
Lea’ea joins the Orange from UC Irvine where she appeared in 114 sets across 41 matches after redshirting the 2022 season. The 6-foot-1 Las Vegas, Nevada native was an All-WCAL Second Team honoree out high school at Saint Francis (CA). Lawton, a 6-foot junior transfer from San Jose State joins the Orange from Mililani, Hawaii, where she won an ILH and state championship as a senior en route to earning All-State recognition. At San Jose State she appeared in 32 matches over her first two seasons totaling 78 kills and 64 blocks.
Laurio is a 5-foot-10 middle blocker from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who earned All-Region and All-State recognition each year from 2022-24. She was named Saline High School’s Most Valuable Player a junior and senior. She’s joined by freshman Elizabeth Turner who hails from Pine Bluff, Arkansas and has spent time in Japan playing for Kizankino Sho Club the last four years. While attending Seiwa Joshi Gakuin High School in Japan, she helped her varsity team finish No. 1 in the Sasebo region in each of her final two seasons and was named the Best Hitter and MVP for the DODEA Pac-East in 2022.
The final middle blocker added for the 2025 season is Nevada transfer Gabriella McLaughlin. The 5-foot-8 senior played three seasons for the Wolfpack where she was named All-Mountain West in 2024. She is a College Sports Communicators Academic All-District honoree in 2023 and led the team in kills (443), kills per set (3.82) and was second in digs with 265 in 2024.
McLaughlin and Maeva will reconnect in Syracuse after having shared the court at Nevada the past two seasons.
Teves is a 5-foot-7 sophomore transfer from Waipahu, Hawaii. She appeared in 25 matches playing in 79 sets at Long Island University in 2024 and tallied 59 digs (0.75 per set) and secured 21 aces with five assists. Joining Teves as a defensive specialist and libero is Yamada, a 5-foot-6 junior from Kanagawa, Japan, who played most recently at Western Arizona.
“We want to build a team that the Syracuse community can see themselves in,” Ganesharatnam added. “We want to be a team that’s truly blue collar, has grit and works hard. We want the relentless pursuit of excellence not just on the court but also in the classroom and in our community. We want to be engaged, and I feel like this group will do that. We want to strengthen our core values and really pursue that.”
The first official practice of the 2025 season is slated for later this month on July 31.
For more on Syracuse volleyball, follow the Orange on social media @CuseVB.
| December 16, 2023
