One member of Purdue’s 2025 recruiting class has entered the NCAA transfer portal. Defensive specialist Mattie Casale decided to explore opportunities following the conclusion of the Boilermakers’ 2025 campaign, which concluded in the Elite Eight.

Casale, a 5-foot-7 freshman, has also already found a new home. On Christmas Eve, Houston posted on social media that it had received a commitment from the former Boilermaker. She will have all four seasons of eligibility remaining with the Cougars.

Purdue ➡️ Houston

Mattie is joining the Cougar Volleyball family! 🏐 pic.twitter.com/BEvGaS98Ee

— Houston Volleyball (@UHCougarVB) December 24, 2025

Casale spent one season in West Lafayette but did not play in any matches. She used the 2025 campaign as a redshirt year.

Houston added three new players to the roster in recent weeks, trying to bolster its squad ahead of the 2026 campaign. The Cougars also received commitments from middle blocker Kaitlyn Evans (Loyola Marymount) and outside hitter Sydney Jones (Tennessee).

“Our volleyball staff has been working to rebuild Houston Volleyball and with the two transfers we announced last week, we have improved our team for the 2026 season,” head coach David Rehr said in a statement. “The additions of Casale, Evans and Jones continue to make us a better volleyball team.”

Casale joined Purdue as a member of the 2025 recruiting as the No. 1 defensive specialist/libero in the state of Florida, per PrepDig.com. She was a national finalist for Libero of the Year in 2023.

Houston ended the 2025 regular season with a 9-20 record.

Purdue in great shape at DS/libero

Losing a talented freshman to the transfer portal isn’t a great feeling, but Purdue is in really good shape at the libero spot moving forward. Ryan McAleer just concluded her sophomore season and was an All-Region honorable mention for the 2025 season. She also earned second-team All-Big Ten honors.

McAleer has solidified her spot as Purdue’s top libero, especially after a stellar season. She averaged 3.634 digs and 1.267 assists per set for the Boilermakers this past season. She also developed into one of the top servers on the team, especially late in the year. The sophomore had 21 service aces for the season.

The Boilermakers also have depth at defensive specialist, with both Rachel Williams and Sienna Foster in the back row. Those two have primarily been utilized as serving specialists, but have also improved as defensive players in coach Dave Shondell’s system.

Purdue prides itself on the defensive end and has plenty of skill, even with Casale’s departure from the program.

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Related stories on Purdue volleyball

3 BOILERS EARN ALL-AMERICA HONORS: Three Purdue volleyball players received All-American honors from the AVCA on Wednesday. The Boilers finished with a 27-7 record and a trip to the Elite Eight. CLICK HERE

SHONDELL INKS CONTRACT EXTENSION: Following Purdue’s loss to Pitt in the Regional Final, coach Dave Shondell revealed that he signed an extension to remain the head coach of the Boilermakers. CLICK HERE

BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION – The Texas A&M volleyball team added redshirt sophomore middle blocker Eliza Sharp to the 2026 roster, head coach Jamie Morrison announced Friday.
 
Sharp joins the Aggies from Boise State, where she had a historic debut campaign for the Broncos being named Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year. The middle blocker also garnered All-Mountain West Team honors, as she was only one of five freshmen in the conference to be named in the postseason awards.
 

“It’s hard to win conference awards as a middle blocker and Eliza [Sharp] comes to us as the reigning Freshman of the Year in her conference,” coach Morrison said. “She is an elite athlete as both a blocker and an attacker who will continue the lineage of great middle blockers at Texas A&M. From our first phone call, I knew she would be a great fit for our culture, not just as a player, but as a person who embodies the values of Texas A&M.”
 
The Burlingame, California, native impresses offensively, as she ranked second on her team in kills after tallying 250 on the year, averaging 2.21 per set and hitting at a .323 percent clip. She eclipsed double-digit kills on nine occasions, setting her career high at 15 and hitting that number twice versus Navy and Utah State.
 
On the defensive end she also finished the year second in blocks, stuffing 140 swings in her debut campaign. She set her career high of 11 total blocks versus San Diego State and had another 10-block outing versus Montana.
 
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The journey to a national title lasted 10 years for Metropolitan State University of Denver women’s volleyball head coach Jenny Glenn.

When it came down to the final game of the 2025 season, she knew the team had already accomplished a feat far more remarkable than its first NCAA Division 2 championship: They knew themselves not only as players but as people.

“We really pressed into our identity of who we were off the court and who each individual was, and that was just a turning point,” Glenn said. “In the last three weeks of our season, our team played in such freedom, and we didn’t feel the pressure. … When we did that, you saw a team that was kind of unstoppable.”

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Coming full circle

In August, the team attended a retreat in Grand County and visited the same courts where Glenn, a graduate of Middle Park High School, found her love of volleyball.

“We taught our team about what identity is and who they’re created to be, and we spent most of the season identifying who or what each athlete is, and who they were created to be,” she said.

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The women then traveled to Middle Park High School and West Grand High School to host camps for local students — a full-circle moment for Glenn, she said, and an opportunity to give back to the community that shaped her.

A Granby native, Glenn has been coaching the Roadrunners for the past decade leading up to their first national championship win against nine-time winner Concordia University St. Paul.

She was a three-sport athlete in high school and played volleyball for Middle Park, with her father, Jim Glenn, as head coach. Her father and sisters’ love of volleyball fueled her own, but she also received support from her track coach Paul Quere and her high school PE coaches Cal and Tammy Cherrington, she said.

Her mentors instilled a sense of identity within her — something she wanted her players to cultivate for the 2025 season. At the August retreat, she taught her players about self-discovery and finding their unique role on and off the court.

“This season, each person had a role,” she said. “It really was all of us — all 14 players plus our staff — really operating out of who they were created to be. That was really cool.”

Championship season

In addition to a strong identity, the Roadrunners came out of the season with a strong track record: The team finished with 32 wins, the most in program history. Glenn’s overall winning percentage and conference winning percentage are the best in team history.

“Since I’ve gotten here, we’ve set our sights on the national championship,” Glenn said. “We have always said that our goal is to win a national championship, but we also wanted to do it the right way.”

The team had been working its way up the rankings since Glenn came on as head coach. In 2020, it finished fourth in the final division poll and took the No. 3 spot in 2021 and 2022.

After five years of getting beat out at the Sweet 16 stage, this year was the team’s first time making it to the Elite 8 of the NCAA Championship and Glenn’s first time since she played volleyball for Truman State University.

MSU Denver won three of four sets at the Dec. 13 championship match. The winning point of the final game, in which the Roadrunners defeated their opponent 25-21, was scored by junior Megan Hagar, an outside hitter who stepped in after the team’s sole senior player Annika Helf was sidelined by a knee injury in the quarterfinal.

At a press conference after the win, players applauded Hagar’s willingness to fill in for her injured teammate, adding that Glenn’s leadership and dedication to the team were crucial to securing the title.

“I am so deeply proud of her that she just stayed in throughout the entire season, and she got the fruit of that,” teammate Skyler Michael said about Hagar, who was also named the tournament’s most valuable player.

Helf, an all-American player, stayed supportive on the sidelines, cheering on Hagar and the team as they moved on to the semifinals and, eventually, the championship game. She credited Glenn’s unique coaching style as a key factor in the team’s success.

“Lots of coaches are focused on performance, and to have a coach that is focused on making us good human beings and knowing who we are, it’s just amazing,” Helf said at the press conference.

Looking back on the season, Glenn credited her players’ inner work for their outward success. The ability to tell the team’s story on a large scale has been a blessing, and now that the championship is over and won, she said she looks forward to recharging and regrouping before planning for next season.

“The trophy is awesome, but I’m just so proud of who these women are,” she said. … “We’ve already won in knowing who we are.”

PRESS RELEASE: UK ATHLETICS

The Kentucky Volleyball team announced the signing of outside hitter Morgan Gaerte on Wednesday afternoon, who joins the Wildcats with two years of eligibility remaining on her clock.

Gaerte comes to Lexington after spending the first two years of her career at Notre Dame, where she was named First Team All-ACC after the 2025 season and honorable mention on the American Volleyball Coaches’ Association All-America list for this year, as well. She was a team captain for Notre Dame and a member of the AVCA Midwest Region’s first team. 

This season, she started all 28 matches and logged 497 kills for the Irish, the most by any Notre Dame player in the rally-scoring era (2008-pres.) and third-most overall in all scoring eras. Gaerte averaged a mammoth 4.64 kills per set and had 10-plus kills in 22-straight matches to kick off the UND season, the second-longest streak in program history for Notre Dame. 

Standing at six-foot-five, she hails from Angola, Indiana where she graduated from Angola High School while being ranked as the No. 5 player in the nation by Volleyball Magazine in 2023 and first team all-state for Indiana in 2022 and 2023. She is majoring in Sports Marketing. 

For the latest on UK Volleyball, follow the Wildcats on Twitter and Instagram at @KentuckyVB. 

The journey was long.

The tournament was a gauntlet.

The ending was unforgettable.

Texas A&M volleyball sits atop the college volleyball world after winning the national championship in Kansas City on Sunday.

A group of nine seniors, an impact transfer and talented youngsters bought into the vision of a third-year head coach and reached the mountaintop… faster than Jamie Morrison originally thought!

Let’s look back on the highs (of which there are many) and lows from the 29-4 campaign, which ended with a trophy ceremony under a shower of confetti.

10. “Voldemort weekend”
Any complete story includes both the good and the bad. For A&M, there were way more wins than losses as the Aggies dropped just four matches all year.

Half of those came during a Tuesday-Wednesday back-to-back in Dallas and Fort Worth.

A sweep from top-10 SMU and a marathon loss at No. 15 TCU just so happened to be a blessing in disguise for a squad that started the season ranked No. 8 and ultimately fell to No. 14 in the AVCA rankings.

“I thought that changed the tone of our season,” Morrison said months after those September defeats. “It was a wake-up call. We need to dial into things that make us us. We need to hold each other accountable every single day.”

Re-centered and re-focused, the Aggies won 21 of their next 23 sets to carry a seven-match winning streak into an Oct. 8 date with No. 3 Kentucky.

9. Reed’s first-ever top-10 match
At 4-0 in SEC play, A&M set up a heavyweight battle with one of the league’s best as No. 3 Kentucky came to Aggieland in early October.

The Wildcats entered at 10-2 with September losses to No. 1 Nebraska and No. 7 Pittsburgh.

Reed welcomed the fifth-largest crowd in program history as 4,469 turned out to watch the Aggies take the first set, 25-21.

However, Kentucky rallied to win the next three, including a 27-25 clincher to hand A&M its only regular-season loss in SEC play.

“I’m a little disappointed and really cut up right now that we couldn’t put that to five,” Morrison said then.

When the two teams met again, A&M wouldn’t need four sets, let alone five.

8. The winning streak
From Oct. 12 through Nov. 23, the Maroon & White looked invincible as they won 11 consecutive matches and swept eight conference opponents in the process.

The dominant stretch helped A&M finish a perfect 8-0 away from Reed in SEC play and reach the semifinals of the SEC Tournament in Savannah.

Oh, and it also included a pair of top-20 victories, the first of which came on…

7. Halloween in Aggieland
Morrison & Co. showed signs of the build back in 2024 when they waltzed into Austin and upset No. 7 Texas in five sets for their first victory at Gregory Gym in 23 years.

When the Lone Star Showdown shifted back to Aggieland on Oct. 31, 2025, the archrivals treated a program-record 9,801 to another five-set classic at Reed Arena.

Kyndal Stowers hit .400 with 22 kills to lead the way. Ifenna Cos-Okpalla had nine blocks. Maddie Waak dished out 46 assists.

In the end, A&M’s victory over No. 2 Texas served as the program’s highest-ranked win since 1995 as well as a message to the rest of the country.

“A lot of people fear Texas’ logo, and I don’t think that’s the case anymore,” Morrison said. “We proved we can beat them on a national stage. This is huge for our program.”

6. Selection Sunday
At 23-4 and 14-1 in the SEC, A&M was handed a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament by the selection committee…in No. 1 overall seed Nebraska’s region…that also featured 2024 national runner-up Louisville.

“I think our RPI system is broken,” Morrison said after winning it all. “I don’t think our seeding was correct. I think we were probably No. 5 or No. 6 (nationally).”

Their national ranking — No. 6 — would’ve equated to a No. 2 seed.

Additionally, the same TCU team that beat the Aggies in September was sent to College Station for the second round.

As is often the case when committees are involved, A&M was underseeded, but they clearly took that as fuel to ignite a postseason fire.

5. A program-record FOUR (4) All-Americans
Starpower shined throughout the year and then was honored in the postseason as AVCA recognized Ifenna Cos-Okpalla, Logan Lednicky, Kyndal Stowers and Maddie Waak as All-Americans.

Cos-Okpalla became A&M’s fourth-ever first-teamer, while Lednicky earned a second-consecutive second-team honor.

Waak, the nation’s leader in assists per set entering the postseason, was recognized on the third team after becoming the first Aggie setter since 2019 to have back-to-back 1,000-assist seasons.

And last but certainly not least, Stowers — who might be the best story in sports right now — went from being out of volleyball altogether following a medical retirement at Baylor to becoming a second-team All-American. She was at her best in the NCAA Tournament, with double-digit kills in A&M’s final five matches.

4. Morrison recognized as the National Coach of the Year
Sticking with postseason accolades, the AVCA honored the Aggie head man just hours before the program’s Final Four match vs. Pittsburgh.

At that time, A&M was already enjoying a historic season with a 27-4 record to represent the most wins in the rally-scoring era and the most since 1999.

“I am honored to receive this award and accept it on behalf of our outstanding university, athletic department, athletes, coaching staff, fans and everyone who works tirelessly within our program,” coach Morrison said. “This recognition is the result of a true collective effort, and I could not be prouder of the people I work alongside or the place I am fortunate to call home.”

Little did he know that a historic 2025 was a few days away from becoming legendary.

3. Reverse sweep of Louisville
Friday, Dec. 12, gave birth to the “Why Not Us” mantra that became synonymous with the 2025 national champions.

As the story goes, when A&M was down 2-0 and staring elimination in the face, Ava Underwood’s and Logan Lednicky’s boyfriends took a trip to the concession stand in search of something — anything — to change the momentum.

Why not, right?

Facing the 2024 national runner-up, the Aggies won a hard-fought third set to stay alive, 25-23. With a 25-18 win in the fourth, they forced a decisive race to 15.

Stowers, who had back-to-back points to stave off defeat in a 23-23 third-set deadlock, clinched both the fourth and fifth sets to send A&M to its first Elite Eight since 2001.

As the mysterious piece of paper next to A&M’s bench prophesied: Something great did happen and was about to happen again.

2. Knocking off Nebraska
Nobody — literally, nobody — had gone into Lincoln’s Bob Devaney Sports Center and defeated the Nebraska Cornhuskers on their home floor in over 1,000 days.

That changed on Dec. 14 in one of the sport’s more shocking upsets in recent memory.

Nebraska, the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed, was 33-0 with 28 sweeps to its credit. Prior to the dance beginning, the Huskers were given a 55.5 percent chance to win it all.

A&M didn’t care. Was their victory miraculous? Perhaps, but instead of David vs. Goliath, it was more Goliath vs. Goliath’s stronger, lesser-known sibling.

The Aggies won the first two sets, stunning the Big Red crowd of 8,650. Even when Nebraska rallied back and won an exhausting 37-35 fourth set, the Ags never blinked. Instead, their grit and resolve reached a higher level.

As she so often had throughout her incredible career, Lednicky’s 24th and final kill of the match clinched a 15-13 fifth-set victory and punched A&M’s ticket to the program’s first Final Four.

Despite being the overwhelming championship favorite, Nebraska represented the first of three consecutive No. 1 seeds vanquished along A&M’s path to the national title.

“I don’t think it’s been the greatest upset in the history of sport,” Morrison said. “It was a really good volleyball team that put the work in at the right time of year, cared about each other, decided we were going to go grind. We were not going to back down from everybody.

“For us, we don’t consider it an upset because we consider ourselves really, really good. We played with a chip on our shoulder to try to prove it to everybody.”

1. Cos-Okpalla cues confetti in KC
During the second set of the national final, Ifenna Cos-Okpalla became A&M’s all-time leading blocker with the 653rd of her career. She’d finish with 655.

But that wasn’t her crowning moment.

On the third championship point of the day, an Emily Hellmuth dig led to a Waak set for one of three attacking options, but the ball didn’t go to Lednicky or Stowers.

The 6-foot-2 senior from Flower Mound rose high above the net as if suspended for a moment that will live forever in Aggie lore.

“I figured if I got the ball, I’d put it away,” she said. “I knew once I got set, I’m putting it away regardless.”

Known for her stoic presence after monster blocks or emphatic kills, the ever-calm Cos-Okpalla finally let it all out as her teammates rushed the floor with confetti raining down and thousands celebrated the Aggies.

Hugs, tears and trophies — all hard-earned — represented a monumental achievement: The first team in history to sweep back-to-back matches in the Final Four on the road to immortality.

A banner and championship rings will follow. The Aggies finished the job, completing a build to prominence that only took three seasons.

“It’s so amazing to be able to see the fruition of our work now,” Morrison said. “For all of them, they wanted to build something, be a part of something, go out on top with a national championship, I’m just really happy.

“When I’m sitting in the locker room just staring off, our staring off in a distance, it’s a mixture of disbelief and absolute joy they’re getting to see the work they put in pay off.”

In just three years, Ella Thompson went from never playing organized volleyball to committing to a top-25 NCAA Division I program.

But it wasn’t like she started from scratch.

With a father and two older siblings who were NCAA track and field athletes, Thompson had competed in that sport for most of her life.

When she began playing volleyball in the eighth grade, her track and field skills translated perfectly into her new favorite sport.

After all, when you combine the leaping ability of a high jumper with the arm speed of a javelin thrower, you might get an elite outside hitter in volleyball.

That’s exactly what Thompson is.

The senior capped her high school career by leading Camas to its third consecutive state trophy. Thompson was named to the Class 4A all-tournament team after helping the Papermakers place fifth.