Utah has discontinued the program after nine seasons.

The University of Utah is spiking beach volleyball.

The U. said a change in conferences, the sport’s “stunted” growth, and home facilities that don’t allow the Utes to host championship-level events all contributed to discontinuing the program, which just finished its ninth season.

“This was an extremely difficult decision, and we did not arrive at this conclusion without a significant and appropriate amount of thought, consideration and consultation,” Utah Athletic Director Mark Harlan said in a news release.

Utah was part of the Pac-12 Conference when the school added beach volleyball in 2017. The conference had nine schools that competed in the sport.

Now the Utes are members of the Big 12 Conference, which only has three other beach volleyball programs and lacks automatic qualification for the NCAA tournament.

“We looked at the landscape of intercollegiate beach volleyball and the future opportunities of our student-athletes. Currently, there are only 12 beach volleyball programs among power conference institutions, with little evidence of the sport expanding at this time,” Harlan said. “With the sport’s growth stunted, and without the home facilities with amenities that allow us to host championship-level events, we are not providing the world-class experience that we seek to provide to our student-athletes.”

The Utes finished their season in the semifinals of the Big 12 tournament last week.

The decision to shut down the program leaves about 12 current athletes and a handful of incoming recruits without a team.

“We will work closely with each of our impacted student-athletes to provide them with all of the support they need,” Harlan said.

That includes honoring the scholarships for all of those athletes “through the receipt of their undergraduate degree” for students who might decide to remain at the U. For athletes who want to find a new program, Harlan said, “Utah will do all that it can to facilitate the process.”

Utah said that scholarship funds previously dedicated to the beach volleyball team would be funneled to the school’s other women’s sports programs.

For the last four years, Lexi Rodriguez was the rock of the Nebraska volleyball program. The four-year starter and three-year captain owned the libero position from day one and put together a highly decorated, record-setting career in Lincoln.

Now she’s playing in the pros, and finding her successor is one of the top offseason objectives for Dani Busboom Kelly as she heads into her first season as Nebraska’s head coach. Fortunately, she likes her options — senior Maisie Boesiger, junior Laney Choboy, sophomore Olivia Mauch and freshman Keri Leimbach.

“All four of them have done a great job,” Busboom Kelly said prior to Nebraska’s exhibition win against Kansas. “I think they’re having great springs, and they’re all very different, which is unique. When we set up our six-on-six teams, it’s been fun to kind of put them in maybe tougher situations, whether it be putting Olivia with the quieter team where she has to step up and be a vocal leader, and Laney maybe with more of the loud voices and see how they kind of all blend together.

“But all four of them have been very, very good, and you can pick out days where they’ve all been really impressive.”

Busboom Kelly herself spent her final season at Nebraska at libero after starting at setter, helping the Huskers win a national championship in 2006. Since then, the view of the position has changed dramatically — and Rodriguez played a part in that as she carried forth the libero legacy in Lincoln.

“I think it’s changed quite a bit,” Busboom Kelly said. “It was still kind of new in 2006 a little bit. Liberos weren’t even playing pro back then. It was really hard. And now, you go to a LOVB game and you see Lexi Rodriguez getting the loudest ovation of anybody, any team. So I think it’s become a pretty big deal to be a great libero.”

Busboom Kelly highlighted two key traits she believes a libero must possess: the ability to pass the ball at a high level and a lot of confidence. Each of them showed glimpses of meeting those requirements in Nebraska’s 4-0 win against the Jayhawks on Saturday.

Busboom Kelly gave all four defensive specialists a chance to see the court in multiple sets, with Choboy and Mauch rotating at the libero spot from set to set. The Huskers tried a different combination in each set, and Busboom Kelly said she liked what she saw from the “littles” throughout the match.

“I did tell them in the locker room as a group, the first thing I said was I was just super impressed by those four and the way they handled the changes,” Busboom Kelly said after the match. “I thought Maisie and Keri did an awesome job in their roles, and Laney and Liv — going in and out of being libero is not easy, and their stats might not be amazing when we look at them tomorrow morning, but I thought their play was very, very good, and I’m super proud of them. It’s one of the deepest groups of liberos I’ve ever coached.”

Choboy led Nebraska with 18 digs in three sets (two as libero, one as defensive specialist), adding two assists, one ace and one service error. Mauch recorded 12 digs, six assists and one ace, though she was also credited uncharacteristically with two reception errors. She also played in three sets, two as a libero and one as a defensive specialist.

Boesiger had two digs in two sets as a defensive specialist. Leimbach played in two sets, one as a defensive specialist and one as a serving specialist, notching one dig and one ace. The freshman impressed John Cook, who served as color commentator for the Big Ten Network broadcast of the match.

“In the practices that I’ve watched, I’ve been very impressed with her,” Cook said. “When you watch them in high school, they all look good. But when she got in with this group, she’s been very impressive.”

Olivia Mauch (10) dives to dig the ball with Andi Jackson against the Kansas Jayhawks. Photo by John S. Peterson.

Mauch produced one of the highlights of the night in the fourth set, dropping a back-set dime cross-court to Harper Murray, who terminated over a triple block.

“I’m going to tell you right now, Nebraska has gone to another level with their liberos on setting out of system,” Cook said after the play. “That might be the most impressive thing for me.”

Cook said who wins the libero jersey is one of the offseason storylines he’s most looking forward to following.

“They’re up to the task,” Cook said. “I was talking to Dani about how is she going to make that decision … She had a really interesting answer. She said they’re all so even, they’re all passing-wise very good, serving. It’s going to come down to personality; what does the team need? They’re all very different personalities. So I thought that was a very interesting answer. I would never look at it that way, but that’s Dani and her instincts. She was a high-level player, and those are important things. What player is going to help that team feel comfortable and confident and be the best fit?”

From a personality standpoint, the two main contenders for the job — Choboy and Mauch — are almost complete opposites, which makes Busboom Kelly’s response all the more interesting.

“They both go about it their own way,” Harper Murray said. “I think Liv is a little bit more like Lexi as a person, a little bit more quiet and reserved, but they both have their own way about it, and it’s special, no matter how they’re going to do it.”

While an NCAA rule change allows teams to dress two players in the libero jersey and rotate them during the match, Busboom Kelly said she would prefer to have the consistency of one person filling the libero jersey. Fortunately for Nebraska, whoever ends up winning the competition will have had the best mentor one could hope for.

“I think Lexi is the type of person that’s going to leave her mark, and that’s exactly what she did, and I know that they all want to continue her legacy and continue to make us and our teammates and our fans and Lexi proud,” Murray said. “I know that they took a lot away from her, and I’m sure they’re going to find their own special way to show that. We obviously miss Lexi a lot, but it’s now their turn to fill her shoes, and they’ve done a great job of that.”

After a stellar freshman campaign for the No. 1 team Long Beach State, setter Moni Nikolov has been named Big West Player and Freshman of the Year, as voted on by the league’s six head coaches.  

Nikolov, who hails from Sofia, Bulgaria, follows in brother Alex’ footsteps in the top freshman honoree, the Big West’s 2022 winner. Moni surpasses him in claiming the Player of the Year award and is just the second setter to top the list (Jakob Thelle, Hawai’i, 2022-23). 

This season, Nikolov has amassed impressive numbers in a first collegiate campaign, making valuable contributions in every facet of the game. As the primary setter for the nation’s best offense, Nikolov heads into the national postseason averaging 9.99 assists per set. With Nikolov at the helm, the Beach currently leads the nation in hitting percentage at 0.396. 

Also strong at the net, both offensively and defensively, Nikolov has put down 153 kills (1.53/set) and denied 77 total blocks (0.770/set) for a LBSU squad that is second nationally in both team categories.  

Impressively, Nikolov’s prowess at the service line is unmatched in Division I this season. His 94 total aces and counting is a new Big West single-season record, set during the semifinal round of The Hawaiian Islands presents the 2025 Outrigger Big West Men’s Volleyball Championship. Averaging 0.940 aces per set, Nikolov contributes 43 percent of the team’s 2.21 average aces, which is a national team high.  

Nikolov is the first Long Beach State student-athlete to earn Big West Player of the Year since 2019 when Kyle Ensign took home the honors.  

After guiding Hawai’i to The Big West championship, head coach Charlie Wade has been tapped by his colleagues for a third career Coach of the Year honor after also earning acclaim in 2022 and ’23. 

Wade and the Rainbow Warriors took down regular-season victor LBSU in the Championship finale to earn the league’s automatic bid into the 2025 National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship where they picked up the No. 2 seed in the bracket.  

Wade is now the program’s all-time leader in head coaching victories at 318, with the record broken during The Big West Championship. In 16 seasons at the helm, Wade currently owns a career record of 318-130 (.719) and surpassed Mile Wilton’s mark that had been on the books since 2009. Currently with a mark of 26-5 on the year, UH has seen five consecutive seasons with 20 or more victories. 

Both Hawai’i and Long Beach State open play at the 2025 National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship next Thursday, May 8, from the Covelli Center in Columbus, Ohio. The Big West is seeking a fifth national championship since becoming a conference-sponsored sport, with both LBSU and UH owning a set of back-to-back titles in that span.

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — The Summit boys volleyball team continues to build momentum, both on the court and in the state rankings. Now 8-1 on the season after beating Crook County in three sets and sitting as the No. 2 ranked team in Oregon, the Storm are proving once again why they’re a team to beat.

“I’m pretty happy with the win,” said junior Gavin White. “I think we struggled a little bit in the third set, but we were able to bring it back, which is huge. We’ve had a pretty solid season, just one loss outside of league. Other than that, we’ve come together really well as a team and been able to finish off all the games.”

Summit’s dominance is especially impressive considering how young the squad is. The defending state champs feature three juniors and seven sophomores, including standout sophomore Aiden Woods.

“We love it,” said Woods. “We love against Crook County every year. It’s fun to be out here with the same guys I’ve spent the whole year with. It feels like a whole new energy, and we just get to go for it and have a lot of fun.”

Boys volleyball is still considered an emerging sport by the OSAA (Oregon School Activities Association), but its growth has been explosive. When OSAA launched the sport in 2022, only five teams were involved. Now, just three years later, there are 68 teams and nearly 1,000 players competing across the state.

“It’s not something you see a lot, boys playing volleyball,” Woods said. “I like it when we get younger kids are coming in and they watch our games and they’ll come up saying, ‘That was so cool, I want to play volleyball!’ I think that’s awesome! It’s amazing to see.”

Crook County senior Evan Wood says the Cowboys are just as passionate. “When we play with good sportsmanship and pride, it makes it easier for others to jump on board and push for full sanctioning.”

Locally, both Summit and Crook County have built their programs from scratch, with many players having little to no prior experience. Yet the progress has been swift and the ceiling keeps rising.

“This team is so tight off the court, and I think that really translates when we play,” Wood added. “Our coach tells us every day, ‘When you guys are happy, you’re playing well.’ So it’s important for us to be loud and proud out there.”

This year, 4A schools will get their own postseason tournament, and Crook County is hungry for its first title. But for the Storm, the goal remains crystal clear: repeat as champions.

“I think we have the skills,” said White. “I think it’s just all about that teamwork, keeping morale high and just gaining momentum out throughout the tournament. “

“We want to keep improving and win as many times as we can before we graduate,” said Woods.