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FIDMarseille 2025
Frío Metal Since changing its official name from Festival International du Documentaire de Marseille to Festival International de Cinéma de Marseille, FIDMarseille has become a significant premiere-driven industry festival dedicated to the expansive genre of “creative nonfiction” to include experimental, hybrid and essayistic works, often with a political ethos. For its 36th edition, FID reaffirmed its rare outspokenness on Palestine by screening To Gaza (2025) and hosting daily morning screenings of the collective work Some Strings. Through retrospectives of Radu Jude and Chilean duo Carolina Adriazola and José Luis Sepúlveda, the festival also seemed intent on signaling that it is not only political, but provocative. FID hosted the latter’s first ever European retrospective, noting that the filmmakers are rarely programmed outside of South America. For Adriazola and Sepúlveda, this appears, at least partly, by design. Beyond their filmmaking, they run workshops at the Escuela Popular de Cine (Popular Film School) and organize the Festival de Cine Social y Antisocial (FECISO), which resists the traditional urban, middle-class gaze that dominates cinephilia by foregrounding cinema for marginal communities.
My favorite film of the festival was their most recent work Cuadro Negro (2025) which won the Grand Prix at the Punta del Vista Festival earlier this year from a jury including FID’s artistic director Cyril Neyrat. So deadpan it is often unclear whether we’re watching an observational doc or bone-dry satire, this confounding docu-fiction follows “artistic” documentarian Sofía (Sofía Gómez) as she ventures with her camera and tripod into the grounds of the Chilean army—specifically, its titular equestrian acrobatic unit.
Mostly shooting on a low-res handheld digital camera, Adriazola and Sepúlveda’s rough-and-ready images are antithetical to the pageantry on display. Men and their steeds galloping past snowy mountains are stripped of their mythical quality as Sofía belligerently directs the soldiers into awkward tableaus, arms lifted feebly as their horses squirm against them. The project reportedly grew out of the directors’ fascination with horses, which led them to frequent equestrian circles that—unsurprisingly—turned out to be havens for Pinochet-worshipping nationalists. The uneasy entanglement between aesthetics and nationalism is laid bare: the ornamental function of the army’s cavalry and movie-making both rely on a choreography of order and performed dominance.
Sofía is at times comically cruel, as when she orchestrates a bizarre re-enactment of the legendary cavalry officer Alberto Larraguibel Morales setting the world high-jump record on horseback in 1949. She instructs a female soldier to mimic Larraguibel’s pose atop a metal statue mounted on the back of a slow-moving truck (decorated with a skull and cross-bones insignia, a symbol of the Prussian Hussars adopted by the Nazis). Forced into a half-mount position for hours, the soldier’s teary-eyed expression is caught in a dim close-up after finally dismounting. Sofía’s ambivalent performance as a director is Nathan Fielder-esque: both aloof and calculating, she toys with the authority she assumes, exposing the eerie willingness of her subjects to submit to spectacle. Adriazola and Sepúlveda’s anarchic experiment pushes Sofía’s see-sawing power dynamics to an absolute extreme. At one point, she inexplicably moves out of her grandmother’s home and moves in with an older woman who literally prays to Pinochet at night. Rather than the expected rupture, we see a maniacal and surprisingly tender bond develop between the women, shaped by mutual distrust.
A fixture at the festival, prolific Mexican director Nicolás Pereda took part in this year’s FidLab with his upcoming project Everything Else is Noise and premiered his latest feature, Cobre (2025), which won the Special Mention. A wry thriller of bureaucracy that started after Pereda learned about the suspicious death of an activist protesting labor conditions in a mining town, Cobre begins as Lázaro (Pereda regular Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez) finds a dead body on his way to work at the mines.
After Lázaro’s discovery, he becomes slowly encumbered by respiratory issues which are met with skepticism by his doctors, boss and aunt Rosa (new collaborator Rosa Estela Juárez, joining a career-long ensemble cast). Pereda does not build a central narrative around the murder mystery, but moves off-center to explore how systemic violence seeps into the inner lives of those on the periphery, juggling tensions between truth, performance and deception around the ambiguous origins of Lázaro’s illness, rumors around the dead body and Lázaro’s involvement, or white workplace lies. The Kafkaesque apex emerges when Rosa waits for a manager to approve her forged signature on a nondescript document to avoid a minor ouroboric workflow delay. Pereda’s static camera lingers on her face; her breathing is shallow and unsteady, her eyes dart around timidly. Trauma is first internalized, then slowly made external through phantom pains, props and repeated gestures. Lázaro’s compulsive fruit consumption, for instance, becomes a strangely sensual intermediary for displaced and unmet desire. Moments of deliberate performance paradoxically mediate moments of truth. When Lázaro sets Rosa up on a date with his creepy older doctor in exchange for a free oxygen tank, Lázaro and his mum role-play the encounter with Rosa, asking her comically pointed questions about the tensions within their own family. While Lázaro and Rosa perform, the camera pans down to linger on their hands touching timidly as a slow, transgressive desire percolates. As always, Pereda turns seemingly banal interactions into sly displays of power.
Winner of the Prix Georges de Beauregard, Clemente Castor’s sophomore feature Frío Metal (2025) builds on his debut Príncipe de Paz (2019), continuing his focus on adrift youth in the Mexico City suburb of Iztapalapa. Trained at the Béla Tarr film.factory in Sarajevo, Castor—like fellow alumnus Kaori Oda—explores a rich dialectic between subterranean spaces and the human body. The result is a highly symbolic, syncretic universe in which bodies collide dizzily with eroded landscapes shaped by human interference. A loose narrative follows two brothers, Mario (Mario Banderas) and Óscar (Oscar Hernández); the former wakes up in a body that is not his, with “images that don’t belong to him,” while Óscar is mostly absent, having escaped from rehab and disappeared from the family. The film’s segments are divided by various game sequences which operate like a secret code accessing alternate cinematic universes. “You will never progress,” a tarot reader tells Mario—an omen followed by a dreamlike encounter with Lázaro (again, Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez), who teaches him a complex hand gesture that initiates a spatio-temporal drift between urban ruins and mountainous terrain interspersed with non-fiction vignettes of idle suburban youth.
Castor’s work is often aggressively opaque, guided by a seemingly haphazard editing logic that deliberately short-circuits narrative momentum as the film drifts between non-fiction, epistolary voiceover, gestural performance and the supernatural, staged by a largely non-professional cast. Although I can’t say I understood everything, I felt so surprised by the sensation of being adrift, teleporting between ever-shifting film textures and terrains, from the underground to the skies of what appeared like the edge of the world. The film’s dialectics aren’t strictly ideological but affective: like Mario, I found myself clinging to signs, grasping at symbols, trying to decode meaning from disorder in an almost schizophrenic mode before suspending any desire for formal cohesion. The more Castor tears at the fabric of reality, the more forceful the non-fiction vignettes become. I keep returning to the black-and-white 8mm opening shot: a sour-faced roulette girl spins her wheel at a fairground. Even as she hollers for new players, her face reveals that there are no winners.
Pereda and Castor’s films both engage with the ripple effect of violence born from the extraction of natural resources in their native Mexico with radically different methods. Both filmmakers are less concerned with external representations of struggle than with the internal emotional lives of adrift, working-class individuals, foregoing documentary for a form more fantastical as a means of engaging with the conditions of their collective alienation: one evocatively minimalist; another dizzyingly maximalist.
A real discovery for me was French Competition winner Bonne Journée (2025), made over four years with almost zero budget by visual artist Pauline Bastard, who remains relatively unknown outside France. With a distinctive style rooted in a sustained commitment to recycling, here she upends the format of the durational labor film with something more spritely and camp despite remaining largely dialogue-less. At the Emmaüs centre in Grenoble—a cavernous warehouse charity shop that sells everything from kettles and electronics to statues and clothing—Bastard turns her gaze to the mostly immigrant African workers doing the tedious job of taxonomizing, repairing and displaying the incoming barrage of abandoned objects. Bastard carefully confines us within the warehouse, with shots of the famed Grenoble Alps always out of reach beyond a window, or reflected off of a pair of wide-eyed glasses adorned by one of the workers.
Another canonical French recycling film by Agnès Varda comes to mind, but this more closely resembles Sarah Maldoror’s Un Dessert pour Constance (1981) which considers the ways in which found objects can be re-used for unexpected creative purposes and how the labor of African migrants maintains the pristine appearance of the Republic. At first, Bastard’s static camera observes idling workers sorting through piles of junk—at one point, a six-foot-long shirt continually unfurls until it eclipses the man holding it. When they discover cameras in various cardboard boxes, the workers start using them to stage their own images. A kitschy trio of lamps and a pair of big baby dolls are placed gingerly on glittery fabric; their compatriots model the sartorial pieces with coy, vogue pouts. Bastard playfully renounces any steady authorial position as her own frame is subsumed by her companions’ perspectives as they transform the detritus of 21st-century overproduction into a giant costume-shop and stage.
These chichi portraits are finally displayed in frames and monitors dispersed throughout the shop; shoppers fix their gaze on them with quizzically amused expressions. It’s refreshing to see Bastard delicately reimagine the near-rote questions of the art world (what is an art gallery? What are the potentials of image-making?) without falling into self-congratulatory didacticism. In these restagings, the objects curiously sit between multiple worlds: first dispossessed, then iconic, finally just commodity. By reproducing the aesthetic of fashion catalogues and luxury-deco magazines, Bastard both makes fun of our curious fetishistic accumulation of stuff, while also lingering on the seductive quality of such images. Then Bonne Journée finally turns back to question itself: is the film an object or a product?
LOCK HAVEN, Pa. – Lock Haven will send 59 student-athletes to Bucknell University on Friday night (Dec. 5) and Saturday morning (Dec. 6) to open the Bald Eagles’ 2025-26 men’s and women’s indoor track and field season.
The Bison Open will take place inside Gerhard Fieldhouse.
BISON OPEN MEET INFO
PSAC/NCAA QUALIFYING STANDARDS
COLLEGE TEAMS COMPETING AT BISON OPEN
- Bloomsburg, Bucknell, Indiana (PA), Lincoln, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Mount St. Mary’s, Penn State, Shippensburg, St. Francis
MEN’S NOTES
Lock Haven will send 40 men to compete in 17 total events.
In 2024-25, the Bald Eagles took fifth place at the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Indoor Track & Field Championships.
The Bald Eagles will return six PSAC place winners from last season. Nick Bellomo in the heptathlon, Morgan Gavitt and Anden Atkins in the 800-meter run, Jakob Rager in the 3,000-meter run, Josiah Schans and Cameron Lewis as part of the 400-meter relay team will all return in the 2025-26 season for Lock Haven.
Nine newcomers will make their debut on Saturday for The Haven.
LOCK HAVEN MEN’S ENTRIES
Heptathlon: Nick Bellomo
Long Jump: Isaiah Brinker, Michael Lawrence, Benjamin Warburton, Jaden Wright
Triple Jump: Isaiah Brinker, Michael Lawrence, Tadd Ungard, Bryce Warren
High Jump: Ben Gusciora, Shawn Hertzog, Ben Streator, Bryce Warren
Weight Throw: Peter Bellomo, Ty King, Parker Sandt, Eric Zalar
Shot Put: Peter Bellomo, Patrick Marcinko, Eric Zalar
Pole Vault: Kevin Taylor
60-Meter Hurdles: Rocco Pacifico, Matt Reinard, Jorge Santana, Josiah Schans
60-Meter Dash: Dylan Cassetori, Gage Chipeleski, Lukas Epitropakis, Michael Lawrence, Cameron Lewis, Garrison Lucas, Rocco Pacifico, Dillyn Reibsome, Rocky Romani, Josiah Schans, Kevin Taylor, Tadd Ungard, Benjamin Warburton, Jonah White, Sam Wible, Ryan Williams, Brody Wolfe, Jaden Wright
200-Meter Dash: Isaiah Brinker, Dylan Cassetori, Gage Chipeleski, Lukas Epitropakis, Aden Howell, Cameron Lewis, Adam Linkhorst, Dillyn Reibsome, Jorge Santana, Trey Wagner, Bryce Warren, Benjamin Warburton, Jonah White, Sam Wible, Brody Wolfe
300-Meter Dash: Rocco Pacifico, Matt Reinard, Rocky Romani, Josiah Schans, Ryan Williams, Jaden Wright
400-Meter Dash: Aden Howell, Adam Linkhorst, Trey Wagner
500-Meter Dash: Sage Carr
800-Meter Run: Skylar Small, Lorenzo Thompson
Mile Run: Jarrett Lee, Michael Loffredo
3,000 Meter Run: Jakob Rager, Anthony Solis-Morales
4×400-Meter Relay: A – (Wible, Schans, Reinard, Lewis), B – Carr, Epitropakis, Gusciora, Thompson) C – (Howell, Pacifico, Romani, Chipeleski) D – (Lee, Williams, Small, Loffredo)
WOMEN’S NOTES
On the women’s side, Lock Haven will send 19 athletes to compete in 12 total events.
Much like the men, the women’s team will see a mix of returners and newcomers featured on Friday and Saturday, with the returning PSAC place winners being Reagan Irons (high jump) and Samantha Trench (60-meter hurdles).
Mallory Eck, Alyssa VanGorder, Maria Puglia, Madalyn Smith, Laurie Thompson and Clarissa Davis will all return in the throws.
Bald Eagle sprinters Natalie Gentzel, Alexanne Fite, Kelci Carle, Lillian Bradley and Makayla Grace Weber are set to make their returns.
Elizabeth Shultz will return to compete in the 800-meter run.
Lock Haven will be expecting to see newcomers Ella Ballard, Paige Jodon, Macy Plowman and Deja Roark break onto the scene in the sprints.
Freshman Alannah Irwin will make her debut Friday night in the pentathlon.
LOCK HAVEN WOMEN’S ENTRIES
Pentathlon: Alannah Irwin
Long Jump: Samantha Trench
High Jump: Reagan Irons, Samantha Trench
Weight Throw: Alyssa VanGorder, Maria Puglia, Madalyn Smith, Laurie Thompson
Shot Put: Mallory Eck, Clarissa Davis, Alyssa VanGorder, Madalyn Smith
60-Meter Hurdles: Samantha Trench, Makayla Grace Weber, Kelci Carle
60-Meter Dash: Ella Ballard, Paige Jodon, Lillian Bradley, Macy Plowman, Deja Roark, Alexanne Fite, Natalie Gentzel
200-Meter Dash: Ella Ballard, Paige Jodon, Lillian Bradley, Macy Plowman, Deja Roark, Makayla Grace Weber
300-Meter Dash: Alexanne Fite, Natalie Gentzel
400-Meter Dash: Kelci Carle
800-Meter Run: Elizabeth Shultz
4×400-Meter Relay: A – (Elizabeth Shultz, Alexanne Fite, Lillian Bradley, Natalie Gentzel), B – (Kelci Carle, Macy Plowman, Makayla Grace Weber, Ella Ballard, Samantha Trench)
RECAPS AND FINAL RESULTS
Recaps and final results from the Bison Opener will be posted to www.lockhavenathletics.com late Saturday night (Dec. 5).
UP NEXT
The Lock Haven men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams will compete again on Jan. 17 at the Nittany Lion Open.
ALBION, Mich. — Albion College athletics is proud to announce the addition of two new assistant coaches to round out a pair of coaching staffs.
Henry Wehrly (track and field) and Kyle Borek (men’s lacrosse) join the Britons ahead of the spring semester.
Wehrly jumps back into the swing of things at Albion
Head Coach Lance Coleman announced the addition of Henry Wehrly, who returns to his alma mater after crossing the graduation stage last spring. A four-year member of the track and field team, Wehrly was a standout sprinter and jumper. As a senior, the Manchester, Michigan native, earned a pair of top-four finishes at the MIAA Outdoor Championships in the 100-meter and 200-meter dash.
Wehrly graduated with a degree in Kinesiology and has been working as a personal trainer at Manchester Wellness Center. He has organized operations for the business and worked with individual clients on proper techniques, training, and fitness plans.
Borek joins reigning MIAA Tournament Champions
Fresh off winning the 2025 MIAA Tournament, head coach Jacob DeCola has added Kyle Borek to the coaching staff ahead of the 2026 season. Borek returns to the collegiate ranks after having last served as an assistant coach at Davenport University during the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Borek was responsible for the Panthers’ defensive structure. He focused on game planning, film breakdown, and individual player development. He previously worked as a boys varsity assistant coach at Haslett/Williamston High School for two seasons.
Borek is no stranger to the MIAA, as he was a three-year member of the men’s lacrosse team at the University of Olivet. A long-stick midfielder, Borek was a two-time All-MIAA Second Team honoree as he amassed 138 ground balls and 87 caused turnovers over his collegiate career.
Reigning PBC Champions Embry Riddle have been tabbed as unanimous favorites to take home both the PBC Men’s & Women’s Indoor Track & Field titles by the league’s coaches. Embry Riddle received five first place votes on both the men’s and women’s side. Flagler received one first place vote in each. Augusta, Clayton State, Lander and USC Beaufort completed the tables in order.
Embry Riddle have been dominant since the inception of the PBC Indoor Track & Field Championship in 2023-24. The Eagles have been crowned men’s and women’s champions in each of the previous two seasons. In 2025, the two Eagles were selected for the NCAA Indoor Track & Field National Championships with both returning as All-Americans, the first in PBC Indoor Track & Field history. Brooklynn Gould finished 7th in the Pentathlon and Mikaela Miles finished 3rd in the Triple Jump. Embry Riddle sees Miles returns for her senior year in 2025-26, as the Eagles look to secure a third consecutive PBC Championship.
Flagler have been tabbed to finish second in both the men’s & women’s championship. On the women’s side, the Saints improved from a third-place finish in 2024 to a second-place finish in 2025 at the PBC Indoor Track & Field Championship. The Saints had five first place finishers at the championship in 2025. Graduate Taylor Stone was also selected for the NCAA Indoor Track & Field National Championship for the second consecutive season. On the men’s side, the Saints have placed second in each of the two previous seasons. Flagler had six first place finishers at the PBC Championship in 2025, and improvement from three in 2024.
Augusta have been tabbed third place finishers for both the men’s and women’s championship. The Jaguars will make their PBC Indoor Track & Field Championship debut this season.
| 2025-26 Women’s Indoor Track & Field Preseason Coaches’ Poll | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rank | Team | Points |
| 1. | Embry Riddle (5) | 25 |
| 2. | Flagler (1) | 20 |
| 3. | Augusta | 16 |
| 4. | Clayton State | 12 |
| 4. | Lander | 12 |
| 6. | USC Beaufort | 5 |
| 2025-26 Men’s Indoor Track & Field Preseason Coaches’ Poll | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rank | Team | Points |
| 1. | Embry Riddle (5) | 25 |
| 2. | Flagler (1) | 20 |
| 3. | Augusta | 17 |
| 4. | Clayton State | 12 |
| 5. | Lander | 11 |
| 6. | USC Beaufort | 5 |
Women’s Track & Field | 12/5/2025 11:00:00 AM
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
>> Saint Francis Track & Field will once again open the 2025-26 indoor season at the Bison Opener at Bucknell University’s Gerhard Fieldhouse on Saturday.
>> The first track event will be the men’s 60m hurdle trials at 8:30 a.m. and the first field event will be men’s pole vault at 9:10 a.m.
>> Forty-two athletes, 28 men and 14 women, will be competing at the meet for the Red Flash.
2025-26 INDOOR SEASON PREVIEW
Head Coach Douglas Hoover is returning for his 14th season at the helm of the Saint Francis University Track & Field program.
The Red Flash are coming off a 2024-25 indoor season where the women finished third and the men took six at the NEC Indoor Track & Field Championships. The Red Flash had eight podium finishes and one event victories. Clark Gulycz, who is competing this weekend, became the NEC Men’s Indoor Shot Put Champion with a mark of 16.75m.
NEC PRESEASON POLL
Saint Francis women’s track & field was picked fifth in the NEC Preseason Poll. Wagner earned five first-place votes and earned the distinction of being the preseason favorite. Stonehill and CCSU both gained two first-place nods to finish in second and third place. Chicago State gained the last vote for first-place, finishing in fourth. After the Red Flash in fifth place, FDU, LIU, New Haven, Mercyhurst, and Le Moyne round out the ten-team poll.
Saint Francis men’s track & field was picked seventh in the NEC Preseason Poll. CCSU earned eight first-place votes and earned the distinction of being the preseason favorite. Wagner gained one first-place vote to finish in second. Stonehill and Chicago State were picked to finish in third and fourth. FDU and LIU were both tied in fifth place, however, LIU earned the last vote for first-place. After the Red Flash in seventh place, New Haven, Le Moyne, and Mercyhurst round out the ten-team poll.
RED FLASH AT BISON OPENER HISTORY
It will be the 15th time since the 2008-09 season that Saint Francis will be opening the season at the Bison Opener. At last year’s event, there were 14 top-5 finishes, including two first place finishes. Olivia Renk took first in the women’s 200m (25.60) and Julian Saunders took the men’s 200m (22.12).
NEXT UP FOR RED FLASH
The Red Flash will travel to the Ocean Breeze Track & Field Athletic Complex in Staten Island, N.Y. to compete in the Wagner College Seahawk Shootout hosted by Wagner College on Dec. 12.
MEET INFO:
Date: Saturday, Dec. 6
Location: Barton Hall | Ithaca, N.Y.
Live Results: Here
ORANGE ENTRIES:
‘Cuse will start the day in the 60-meter hurdles at 11 a.m. Tawakal Omar and Jamir Brown will make their Orange debuts for the men. Twenty minutes later, Billie Frazier, Emeline Clark, Ivana Richards, Peyton Rollins and Marissa Saunders will race for the women.
The 60-meter dash will kickoff at 11:35 a.m., with Syracuse’s participants coming from a host of Orange men entered. At 11:50 a.m., Bianca Williams, Indie Wallace-Persaud, Jada Williams and Esther Granda will all race in the women’s event.
Samantha Bloch, Kayla Harding, Lizzie Bigelow, Blake Parker and Hailey Schuemann will take on the mile at 12:10 p.m., before the finals of the 60-meter hurdles and 60-meter dash events begin starting at 12:40 p.m.
Grace Finnegan and Luise Hiltzbleck will run in the 3,000-meter run at 1:55 p.m.
Elijah Mallard will represent the men in the 300-meters, followed b Nylah Robinson, Leah Bellow, Mia Hernandez and Andrea Pomales at 3:20 p.m. to close the meet for ‘Cuse.
This season marks Minnesota’s 30th all-time NCAA Tournament appearance, including their 11th straight. The ‘U’ is 28-1 all-time in first round matchups.
GAME 1 INFORMATION
No. 5 Iowa State vs. St. Thomas
Friday, Dec. 5
4:30 p.m. CT (30 minutes after game one ends)
Maturi Pavilion
Minneapolis, Minn.
TV: ESPN+ – Sam Konstan (Play-By-Play) and Meredith Nelson Uram (Analyst)
Radio: GopherSports.com – Tanner Hoops (Play-By-Play)
Live Stats
GAME 2 INFORMATION
No. 4 Minnesota vs. Fairfield
Friday, Dec. 5
Approximately 6:30 p.m. CT (30 minutes after game one ends)
Maturi Pavilion
Minneapolis, Minn.
TV: ESPN+ – Sam Konstan (Play-By-Play) and Meredith Nelson Uram (Analyst)
Radio: GopherSports.com – Tanner Hoops (Play-By-Play)
Live Stats
GAME 3 INFORMATION
Winner of Game 1 vs. Winner of Game 2
Saturday, Dec. 6
7 p.m. CT (30 minutes after game one ends)
Maturi Pavilion
Minneapolis, Minn.
TV: ESPN+ – Andrew Cornelius (Play-By-Play) and Meredith Nelson Uram (Analyst)
Radio: GopherSports.com – Tanner Hoops (Play-By-Play)
Live Stats
TICKETS
Fans can buy tickets for the first and second round matches here.
HEADING INTO THE MATCH
Minnesota leads Fairfield, 1-0, ISU, 25-7, and UST, 3-0
First Meeting: 2019 (Fairfield), 1975 (ISU), 2021 (UST)
Last Meeting: 2019 (Fairfield), 2021 (IST), 2025 (UST)
NOTES TO KNOW
997 — Career kills for Julia Hanson.
258 — Keegan Cook won his 250th career match as a head coach Oct. 12 vs. Ohio St. He’s at 258 for his career.
40 — Minnesota is 40-4 all-time in NCAA Tournament matches at Maturi Pavilion. The last loss was in 2018 vs. Oregon (Sweet 16).
34 — Minnesota ranks 34th nationally (2nd B1G) with 274 blocks.
30 — This year is Minnesota’s 30th ever NCAA Tournament appearance. That is the 11th most of any program in the country.
24 — Julia Hanson has 24 matches with 10+ kills this year in 30 chances (missed Loyola Chicago match).
23 — The ‘U’ ranks 23rd nationally and third in the Big Ten with 2.61 blocks per set.
19 — Minnesota ranks 19th nationally (5th B1G) in hitting % (.278).
14 — Sweeps in 29 matches for the Golden Gophers. They’ve won seven matches in four sets (1-2 in five).
13 — Times this season Minnesota posted 10+ blocks as a team. They’re 10-3 when going for 10-or-more blocks (losses at Oregon, Purdue, Wisconsin).
12 — Minnesota is 12-4 at home this season. Only losses were to UCLA, USC, Nebraska and Wisconsin.
11 — 2025 is Minnesota’s 11th straight NCAA Tournament. They’ve made 26 of the last 27 (missed 2014). They’ve made three Final Fours, four Sweet 16s and an Elite Eight since 2015.
7 — Jordan Taylor ranks seventh in the Big Ten with 1.21 blocks per set, a team-best. That mark leads all Big Ten freshmen.
7 — During Big Ten play, Julia Hanson ranks seventh in the Big Ten with 23 aces. Gilk and Swenson rank ninth with 22.
7 — Gophers head coach Keegan Cook is 7-26 against AVCA Top-25 ranked opponents in three seasons. (Wins vs. No. 15 Baylor, No. 5 Oregon, No. 1 Texas, No. 7 Wisconsin, No. 11 Purdue, No. 23 Indiana and No. 24 Penn St.).
5 — Minnesota ranks 5th in attendance at 4,558 per match (avg.).
5 — Minnesota ranked fifth in the Big Ten with 183 service aces.
5 — During Big Ten play, Julia Hanson ranks fifth in the league in kills per set with 4.02.
5 — Julia Hanson is fifth in the B1G with 4.69 points per set.
4 — Julia Hanson is fourth in the Big Ten with 4.02 kills per set.
4 — Minnesota lost four starters to season-ending injuries in OH Alex Acevedo and Mckenna Wucherer, MB Calissa Minatee and L Zeynep Palabiyik.
3 — Gophers earned All-B1G honors in 2025. Julia Hanson (1st), Stella Swenson (2nd, Freshmen) and Carly Gilk (All-Freshmen).
3 — Straight 20+ kill matches for Julia Hanson in the Illinois, USC and Wisconsin matches. She’s the first Gopher to do so since Stephanie Samedy (’21). She’s hit 10+ in 11 of the last 13 matches.
2 — The Gophers rank second in the B1G in total blocks with 287.
2 — During league play, the Gophers ranked second with 1.77 aces per set. They hold 129 aces (2nd in B1G).
LAST TIME OUT
• The then No. 18 Minnesota volleyball team split its final home weekend, defeating No. 11 Purdue in four sets and falling to No. 10 Wisconsin in three sets. Julia Hanson had 19 kills while Stella Swenson went for 40 assists in the win over Purdue, the Gophers lone top-15 win this season. No Gopher reached 10 kills on Friday vs. Wisconsin as the team was held to just .132 hitting.
GOPHERS IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
• The 2025 season marked the 30th year the Gophers advanced to the NCAA tournament. With an at-large bid, the Gophers advanced to the tournament for the 11th straight season and 26th in the last 27 seasons.
• In the first round of NCAA Tournaments, Minnesota is 28-1 all-time. In round two, Minnesota is 21-7.
• The Gophers all-time record in NCAA Tournaments is 62-29. Minnesota has made the Final Four six times (2003, 2004, 2009, 2015, 2016, 2019), national title game once (2004).
• The program has had 31 straight winning seasons, dating back to 1995. The ‘U’ has won 10-or-more Big Ten games in every season except for one dating back to 1999. The program has finished in the top six of the B1G standings every year since 2015.
GOPHERS IN THE RANKINGS
• The ‘U’ entered the 2025 season with a No. 11 ranking in the Preseason AVCA poll (finished 18th in 2024).
• At the end of regular season, the ‘U’ moved up to No. 17 on Monday, going up one spot from last week.
COACH COOK IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
• Keegan Cook is 19-10 as a head coach in the NCAA Tournament. He led his Washington teams to one Final Four, three Elite Eights and two Sweet 16s. Both years at Minnesota, the ‘U’ has gone to the Round of 32.
HOSTING NCAA’S AT THE PAV
• All-time in NCAA Tournament matches at Maturi Pavilion, Minnesota is 40-4. Two of the losses came to Iowa State, in the 2008 (second round) and 2011 (Sweet 16) NCAA Tournaments. The other losses were in 2018 to Oregon (Sweet 16) and 1993 to Notre Dame (Sweet 16). Minnesota has won six straight NCAA matches at Maturi Pavilion.
SCOUTING FAIRFIELD
• Fairfield (25-5, 17-1 MAAC) is led by third-year head coach Nancy Somera. In her three seasons at Fairfield, the team has posted a 69-24 record, including a 50-4 mark in league play. They’ve won three straight league titles.
• Fairfield is 0-1 against Power 4 Conference opponents this year, losing 3-2 to West Virginia early on in the season. They have not lost a match since Oct. 24 at Quinnipiac. Offensively, they’re led by Marnie Krubally (2.93 kps) and Allie Elliott (2.69 kps). All-time, they’re 0-14 in the NCAA Tournament. In 2000, they became the first MAAC team to win a set in the NCAA Tournament (3-1 loss at #15 Pepperdine).
SCOUTING IOWA ST.
• No. 23 Iowa State (22-7, 12-6 Big 12) is led by 21st-year head coach Christy Johnson-Lynch. ISU has made the NCAA Tournament in 17 of her 21 years at the helm. This year, ISU holds key wins over No. 18 Baylor, No. 6 Arizona State and No. 16 TCU. ISU will be making it’s 18th trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2025.
• Alea Goolsby (3.26 kps) and Morgan Brandt (9.52 aps) pace the offense while libero Rachel Van Gorp (4.83 dps) leads the defense. Van Gorp was the unanimous selection for Big 12 Libero of the Year while Brandt became the second Cyclone ever to win Big 12 Setter of the Year. Five total Cyclones made the all-league teams.
SCOUTING ST. THOMAS
• St. Thomas (21-9, 11-5 Summit) is led by 23rd-year head coach Thanh Pham. After finishing third in the Summit League in 2024, the Tommies took second this year before they took down top-seeded South Dakota State to win the Summit League tournament title and make their first Division I NCAA Tournament.
• The Tommies set Division I program records with 21 overall wins and 11 Summit League wins, and rank among the top 25 nationally in aces per set (9th), kills per set (12th), assists per set (14th), and attacks per set (22nd).
• Morgan Kealy won her second straight Summitt League Setter of the Year award while Tezra Rudzitis and Megan Wetter joined her on the first team. Anya Schmidt was named the league’s Freshman of the Year.
MINNESOTA’S HISTORY VS. FAIRFIELD, IOWA ST. AND ST. THOMAS
• Minnesota is 1-0 all-time vs. Fairfield. They last met in the 2019 NCAA Tournament, a 3-0 sweep for the Gophers.
• The ‘U’ is 25-7 all-time against Iowa State. The two teams last met in the 2021 season, a swep at the Diet Coke Classic for Minnesota. In the NCAA Tournament, they have met two times, with the Cyclones holding a 2-0 advantage. ISU defeated Minnesota in 2011, 3-1, at Maturi Pavilion. The match was a Sweet 16 game. In 2008, ISU beat Minnesota in four sets in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at the Pav.
• The Gophers are 3-0 all-time vs. UST since the Tommies became a Division I team in 2021. The first two matchups were sweeps in 2021 and 2024. The third was a four-set win for Minnesota this fall (25-22, 25-20, 23-25, 25-18). Julia Hanson had 18 kills and 10 digs to lead the ‘U’ in the match.
STRONG SCHEDULE PREPS ‘U’ FOR POSTSEASON
• The Gophers went 3-6 vs. ranked opponents in 2025. Minnesota was one of nine Big Ten teams to make the 2025 NCAA tournament. Of the Gophers 11 non-conference opponents, seven made the NCAA Tournament.
• The ‘U’ enters the postseason with a top-15 RPI and earned the No. 13 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.
• In all, the Gophers faced 15 teams that make up the field of 64. Against teams that made the postseason, Minnesota posted a 9-8 record this season.
THREE GOPHERS EARN ALL-BIG TEN HONORS
• Freshman opposite Carly Gilk, senior outside Julia Hanson and redshirt freshman Stella Swenson all earned all-league honors. Hanson was named a unanimous First Team All-Big Ten selection while Swenson made the second team and the all-freshman team. Gilk joined Swenson as a Big Ten All-Freshman Team honoree. Lauren Crowl garnered Minnesota’s Sportsmanship Award.
• Hanson earned her second straight First Team All-Big Ten honor while Swenson and Gilk earned their first honors from the Big Ten.
UP NEXT
If they are victorious, Minnesota take on the winner of No. 5 Iowa State and St. Thomas on Saturday, Dec. 5 at 7 p.m. CT. ESPN+ will televise again.
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