College volleyball: Emma Berran hoping to lead SCSU to Elite Eight in her 4th year as starter

ST. CLOUD —

Chad Braegelmann

is beginning his 25th season as a college volleyball coach.

When he asked what makes Emma Berran a special setter, he lists off a number of things. But one thing stands out.

“She has an ability to put a ball in a certain spot where hitters can be successful,” Braegelmann said of the two-time AVCA All-America honorable mention pick. “She finds and sets the middle (hitters) probably better than anyone I’ve coached in 25 years. She’s able to set them a ball on the net, but she can force a ball to them from 10 feet off the net and that surprises a lot of teams.

“Not a lot of teams can run a middle offense with the ball passed or dug almost 10 feet off the net. That’s a skill not easily acquired and she had great training with her club program.”

Berran is about to begin her fourth season as the starting setter for Braegelmann at St. Cloud State.

The Huskies

are ranked No. 3 in the AVCA/TARAFLEX NCAA Division II women’s preseason poll and open their season against Simon Fraser at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 4, at the Western Washington Invitational in Burnaby, British Columbia.

Berran, a 6-foot senior from Inver Grove Heights, has her name all over the SCSU record books.

The interesting thing is that when Berran was being recruited out of Eagan High School, she wasn’t even the team’s starting setter.

ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY

Berran originally started getting some recruiting looks from SCSU when she was a sophomore. She was playing mostly outside hitter at the time because Kennedi Orr was the Wildcats’ starting setter.

She played outside hitter and was Orr’s backup, but caught the attention of SCSU’s coaching staff.

“We watched her play and liked what she did,” Braegelmann said. “We joke with Emma that she’s maybe not an elite athlete with fast twitch, jumping high and running super fast — those probably aren’t her strengths. She’s a high volleyball IQ kid. She gets it. She helps her team win.

“She was hitting and setting at the time. We had her visit in the summer of (2020) with just her and the coaches. The funny story is that one of the coaches said, ‘You’re not going to offer her a scholarship.’ Well why? ‘Because she’s not quite a setter with her hands and location and she doesn’t quite hit the ball hard enough. What are you going to do?’ I said, ‘We’re going to offer her because she’s the type of person who needs to be here. She’s the type of person we want in our program.’ “

Berran had little doubt about where she wanted to play college volleyball after the visit.

“I was kind of talking to some D-I schools out west,” she said. “But when I came to St. Cloud, the atmosphere was amazing. The coaching staff has been so great. They care about you as an athlete, but you can always go to Chad and (assistant coach) Marci (Taumalolo) for life problems.

“When I came here, it just felt like home right away. My car ride home with my mom, she said, ‘How did you like it?’ I said, ‘I think St. Cloud is the place.’ I didn’t commit right away because I wanted to go to some other schools. I called Chad and committed over the phone.”

Her junior year, she caught a break. Orr was the 2018 and 2019 Minnesota Volleyball Gatorade Player of the Year and had played two seasons on the U.S. Under-18 team.

“I was not going to set over her because I was younger and she was amazing,” Berran said. “They needed an outside (hitter), so they trained me as an outside hitter.

Andy Rennecke / St. Cloud LIVE

“Then Kennedi ended up tearing her MCL, ACL and her meniscus. Then they were like, ‘Now you need to set.’ They threw me into that spot my junior year. I had already been talking to Chad and Marci a bit. I’m very lucky that I got to have her as my personal coach from the sideline. She’s giving me feedback. She was the senior setter who had been playing since her seventh-grade year. She gave me a lot of tips and tricks, how to read the game a little better. Ever since then, I’ve fully set.”

Orr graduated and ended up playing for the University of Nebraska from 2021-24. Once Orr was out, Berran found her footing as a setter.

In club volleyball as a 16-year-old, she played for the Northern Lights third team. After her junior year, she was playing for Northern Lights’ first team. She said that Dennis “Aame” Amundson, Northern Lights’ setting coach, was a big help.

“I was trained very well by Orr and Aame at Northern Lights,” Berran said “Being able to set and being a setter are two different things. If you can deliver a good ball, you can set.

“Being a setter is more about reading the game, knowing where hitters like to hit and knowing what their best places are to hit. If I’m looking at the block, finding out what blockers to pick on. Where should we hit to score points. That gives me a little bit of an edge. I know the variables to get the most success.”

ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY

Berran comes from an athletic and musical family. Her older brother, Jake, played volleyball in high school and is working on a masters degree in music competition at Rice University.

Her brother Will is a setter on the Eagan High School boys volleyball team. Her sister Mary is a sophomore setter on the girls volleyball team.

“I took piano lessons when I was growing up because my parents felt it was important to have some musical sense,” Berran said. “So me and all three of my siblings took piano lessons. My older brother is really musically gifted … He is incredible. Part of it was he loved music so much that I wanted to do what my brother does.”

In addition, when Berran was in high school, she was a percussionist in the school band and played the drums in the marching band.

Her mother, Carrie, played high school volleyball and basketball before playing center for La Salle University’s basketball team in Philadelphia.

“Sometimes when the family gets together, we play 2-on-2 volleyball games,” Berran said.

While Berran has musical and athletic ability, she’s also an excellent student. She was a CSC Academic All-America Third Team selection in 2024. She is majoring in environmental engineering with minors in math and hydrology.

“I try my hardest,” she said of school. “It doesn’t come naturally and I have to study a lot. If I study anything hard enough, I’ll get pretty good at it.”

ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY

Berran has been named one of SCSU’s captains for the 2025 season, a position that she takes seriously.

“I think it starts with actions, being a consistent player all the time so your teammates can always rely on you,” Berran said. “That’s kind of your job as an upperclassman and a captain. You need to be the steadiness so that other players can rely on you. That’s probably easier from the setter position.

“Being a leader vocally and talking more. I’m eye sequencing and seeing what’s going on on the other side. What’s going on on your side. Leading in the huddles and knowing what to say to people. Everyone likes to be talked to differently. Some people like to be yelled at. Some people need encouragement. It’s about finding that balance of what different teammates need in situations.”

Braegelmann said that he has enjoyed coaching Berran.

“She’s very much a pleaser,” said Braegelmann, who is beginning his 11th season at SCSU. “She’s very emotional in a good way. She cares. Very unselfish. I don’t think she’d have a problem if she didn’t win a single award. I think the team success is way more important to Emma than individual success.

“She’s very unselfish and has an ability to lead by example. If we need help with recruiting or help around the office, she’s always the first one to volunteer.”

She’s looking to help lead the Huskies to the next level. SCSU was 29-3 last year and

lost to Central Oklahoma

in the NCAA Central Region championship match.

“They definitely are still high,” Berran said of expectations for this fall. “Chad and Marci do a really good job of keeping us to a high standard. That helps us hold ourselves to a really high standard. We came up with some goals this past weekend. We want to be (NSIC) tournament and regular season champs. We want to make it to the Elite Eight this year. That’s our goal.”

The Huskies, though, admit that the team is still searching for its identity with the graduation of

outside hitter Kenzie Foley,

libero/defensive specialist Keely Kurschner and Natalie Tesch.

Contributed / St. Cloud State Athletics

“We lost some very key pieces both on the court and off the court,” Braegelmann said. “We were at a meeting the other day and Natalie Tesh was a super important part of our team. She wasn’t on the floor very much, especially as a senior after playing a lot as a junior. But her consistent energy on the bench and being a great cheerleader for her teammates and being a lefty in practice.

“We don’t have Kenzie on the floor and Keely Kurschner was a three-year starter at libero. Trying to replace those parts has been a bit of a challenge. But it’s been fun because I think we’ve been passing the ball as good or better than in previous years. We’re less reliant on Kenzie and Keely, so we’ve had more of a team approach. Trying to figure out that on-court leadership. Emma has been out there.”

Berran agrees that the team is figuring out how the parts are going to come together.

“With Kenzie and Keely leaving and Natalie Tesh leaving, it left a hole in our team because they were a big presence on the team,” she said. “We are an older team, but we’re not as experienced of a team. We’re working on finding that identity, who’s going to step up. Who are our primary passers going to be?

“We have some underclassmen that didn’t play as much last year, but they’ve been performing really well. I’m excited to see where that goes. We’re definitely all really fired up. The level of competition in our practices is almost more competitive than in games sometimes. You want to have that. We get heated in practice and we’re all getting better and working really hard.”

Braegelmann has liked what he has seen out of Berran in the preseason.

“It’s nice to have someone who has pretty consistently been out there for three years,” he said. “I don’t know that there’s been more than a couple points that Emma has missed. She’s been our starting setter for three years and put our team in a good spot.

“She’s given us a chance to be successful.”

ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY

1. Assists (First Year, 2022) — 1,286
4. Assists (Career) — 3,816
7. (tie) Service aces (Game, vs. Florida Tech, 9/1/23) — 6
8. Assists (Season, 2024) — 1,295
9. Assists (Season, 2022) — 1,286
10. Assists (Season, 2023) — 1,235
10. (tie) Assists (Game, vs. Wayne State, 11/18/23) — 63
10. (tie) Assists (Game, vs. Wayne State, 11/19/22) — 63