Morehead, Ky. – Morehead State Volleyball announces the addition of Newport, Kentucky, native Riley McCloskey to the roster for MSU Beach Volleyball this Spring and indoor for the Fall 2026 season.
 
McCloskey, a 2025 graduate of Kentucky high school powerhouse Notre Dame Academy in Park Hills, Kentucky, spent the 2025 season at Memphis. The 6-1 outside hitter appeared in 18 matches for the Tigers making eight starts. McCloskey slugged 70 kills averaging 1.63 kills per set. She notched season highs with 10 kills and six digs against Rice on October 5.
 
“We are excited to welcome Riley to the Morehead State Volleyball family,” said Morehead State head coach Kyrsten Becker-McBride. “We were able to watch her a lot when she was high school, and I was always impressed with the way she competed.  She brings her passion for volleyball to the court and knows what it takes to win.” 

McCloskey missed her most of her senior campaign at Notre Dame in 2024 due to injury. In 2022, as a sophomore at Notre Dame, she was part of a Panda team that won the Kentucky state championship. In 100 sets played, McCloskey tallied 223 kills, posting a .259 hitting percentage.

 

In her junior season at Notre Dame in 2023, McCloskey appeared in 93 sets, smacking 245 kills averaging 2.6 kills per set, while posting a .266 attack efficiency and helping lead the Pandas to the Kentucky high school state championship match.

 

McCloskey joins the Eagles with definite ties to Morehead State. Her mother, the former Megan Hupfer, was a standout for the Morehead State women’s basketball team from 1992-1996. In her four seasons at MSU, she poured in 1,444 points averaging 13.6 points per game and ranks 14^th on the MSU all-time scoring list. She sank 593 field goals in her career, ranking 10^th in program history. She scored 30 or more points 35 times in her career and was a 50% shooter from the floor over her career.

 

McCloskey’s former prep coach is Leslie Litmer (formerly Schellhaas), who starred at Morehead State as a defensive specialist from 2010-13. Schellhaas is Morehead State’s all-time leader with 2,232 career digs and set MSU’s top-three season highs in program history for digs her final three seasons at Morehead State.  She was named the Ohio Valley Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2013 when she set the program record with 685 digs and helped lead the Eagles to their fourth consecutive OVC regular season championship and second OVC Tournament championship in three seasons.

 

 

 

OMAHA, Neb. — Little Merritt and big Merritt met Dec. 5. They share a cosmic connection, at first not evident on that Friday.

Little Merritt does not usually embrace strangers.

For the past nine months, Merritt Squire, soon to be 2, has waited for a new heart. When her doctors confirm a match, a team of cardiothoracic surgeons will fly from Omaha to secure the organ. If the call comes on Christmas, they will leave their families to save her life.

“We’re ready at a moment’s notice,” said Dr. Jason Cole, medical director of the advanced pediatric heart failure and transplant program at Children’s Nebraska.

Two to four weeks later, according to the plan, Merritt will leave the hospital for the first time since February. She has lived nearly half of her life in the cardiac intensive care unit here.

Sadness began to overwhelm Merritt’s mother, Mari Jo Squire, in the days before Thanksgiving. She uprooted her life in Indianola, Iowa, and quit her job. Mari Jo and her older daughter, 6-year-old Monica, stay at the Carolyn Scott Rainbow House, apartment-style residences provided for families of patients near the hospital at which Merritt receives care.

“It’s the holidays,” Mari Jo said. “We don’t even have our tree up at home.”

She sees friends on her social media feeds visiting Santa and taking their kids to look at Christmas lights.

“You start to feel one thing after another,” she said, “and you start to feel more sad.”

And then, Mari Jo said, “something like this happens.”

Her husband, Layton Squire, and his two teenage sons, live at home in Iowa. They drive two-plus hours to Omaha on weekends and for important moments — like on that Friday early this month when Merritt Beason stopped by Children’s Nebraska to see the Squire family.

Beason, 22, is a former first-team All-American who spent two seasons after a transfer from Florida as co-captain of the University of Nebraska volleyball team. The No. 1 pick in the November 2024 Pro Volleyball Federation draft, Beason signed in August with the Omaha Supernovas after one season with the Atlanta Vibe.

When Beason arrived in Omaha recently to begin training camp, officials from Children’s Nebraska and the Supernovas set up the meeting. After a quick standoff, little Merritt offered a few high fives. She held big Merritt’s hand and sat in her lap. They listened to little Merritt’s favorite songs and danced.

“The nurses shared with me that it doesn’t normally happen like that,” Beason said. “It was surreal, one of those humbling and grounding moments.”

Merritt Squire has been at Children’s Nebraska since February, awaiting a heart transplant. (Courtesy of Children’s Nebraska)

Merritt Squire was not the only baby tied to the Nebraska fan base who was named after Merritt Beason in 2023 and 2024. Little Merritt is the only one, though, to have spent an hour, just hanging out, with the 6-foot-4 opposite hitter.

“I think it’s an honor that we get to share the same name,” Beason said.

Beason granted Mari Jo a reason to smile. The visit allowed the Squires to feel normal, Mari Jo said. It reminded her that good things can happen for them.

“Never in a million years would I have thought my Merritt would meet big Merritt,” Mari Jo said. “It was a much-needed day, a very good day. We felt very loved. And it brought my spirits back up.”

Mari Jo and Layton met four years ago. Originally from Kansas, Mari Jo played volleyball and ran track at Nebraska-Kearney. Layton played football at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa.

She supported Nebraska. He cheered for Iowa. Nebraska volleyball united their fandom. Mari Jo was pregnant with their first child together in 2023. They learned late in the year that they were having a girl.

And while watching Beason and the Huskers in the NCAA Tournament two years ago, it hit them.

“We named her because of this person we saw on TV,” Mari Jo said. “We didn’t know her, but every time she spoke, she seemed so genuine.”

Three days after Nebraska lost against Texas in the national championship match, Merritt Squire was born. She was large at 10 pounds and suffered from shoulder dystocia during childbirth. For 85 seconds, she didn’t have air.

“But we took home what we thought was a normal baby,” Mari Jo said.

At 2 weeks old, Merritt refused to take milk. That night, she awoke screaming. Mari Jo unzipped her baby’s sleeper and saw her struggling for air. They rushed to Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines. Medical staff suspected a respiratory virus.

Her chest X-ray revealed an enlarged heart. One doctor, Amanda Jepson, studied the image and turned to face Mari Jo and Layton.

“You need to pick Omaha or Iowa City,” Jepson told them, “and we need to go now.”

They chose Omaha. Friends and family of Mari Jo’s lived nearby. An incoming winter storm grounded plans to travel by helicopter. They raced west on Interstate 80 in an ambulance. Merritt’s heart was functioning at 15 to 20 percent. Mari Jo cried throughout the ride as her parents followed. Nurses tending to Merritt told Mari Jo every few minutes that Merritt was OK.

“Looking back,” she said, “she was so close to not making it.”

In Omaha came the diagnosis: dilated cardiomyopathy. The primary chamber of Merritt’s heart had stretched and grown weak, unable to pump enough blood to the body. She was in heart failure. A genetic mutation caused the condition.

They spent 20 days surrounded by doctors and nurses during that first visit and returned home to Indianola with a medication plan for Merritt. She was slow to hit milestones in the first year of her life. Even eating wore her out.

The Squires stayed hopeful for nearly 13 months.

“Deep down inside,” Mari Jo said, “I knew she was struggling.”

Mari Jo Squire named her daughter Merritt after watching Merritt Beason at Nebraska. “Every time she spoke, she seemed so genuine.” (Courtesy of Children’s Nebraska)

On Feb. 20, 2025, they returned to Children’s Nebraska. Merritt had contracted RSV. She had an acute kidney injury, a result of the heart condition. More than once, Merritt’s morning heart rate reached 195 to 205. Doctors intubated her to prevent cardiac arrest. On March 5, she underwent open-heart surgery to install a Ventricular Assist Device — a Berlin Heart.

The VAD rests outside of Merritt’s body. It cannot be unplugged for more than 30 minutes at a time, but it provides the bridge to a transplant.

Without the VAD, Merritt would not have survived, Cole said. Optimistically, the doctor said he expects a patient like Merritt to wait nine to 12 months for a heart. Her time on the wait list, as of December, is within that range.

Factors in finding a match include time accrued on the list, geographic region, size of the heart required and other medical and genetic conditions.

Hours after confirmation, one surgical team at Children’s Nebraska will begin Merritt’s transplant procedure as the other team is airborne with the donor heart. The surgery in Omaha will require four to six hours.

Cole said the organ should last 20 to 25 years before replacement. In her first year after transplantation, Merritt must stay near her doctors in Omaha. Long term, Cole said he’s seen patients succeed in all areas of life.

“Merritt will have that,” Cole said. “We’re just waiting on the call to make it a reality.”

Before Merritt Beason was born, her parents welcomed a baby boy, Tanner. He suffered from hypoplastic left heart syndrome and lived for 14 days. Beason shared the story of the brother she never met with Cole and Mari Jo during her visit with the Squires.

“It brought tears to their eyes,” Beason said. “God is so intentional in how he uses us. It’s all connected. It makes me understand that my problems as a professional volleyball player are very slim.”

Beason didn’t connect only with little Merritt and her parents. Monica was there too.

“A bundle of joy,” Beason said. “We’re best friends now.”

Monica is making a bracelet for Beason, who studied in college with the intention of teaching third grade. She still wants to work with kids, but pro volleyball altered Beason’s path. Her season with the Supernovas begins in January.

The sport introduced her to the Squires. Beason will be back to see them, she said.

“One of the things that we could always do better is to provide those little snippets of joy for patients and parents through the holiday season,” Cole said. “Merritt coming here was one of those moments.”

Saturday is little Merritt’s second birthday. It comes one day before the NCAA women’s volleyball national championship match. The Squires’ favorite team won’t be in Kansas City, Mo., to play for the title. Nebraska, without Beason this year, lost its perfect season Sunday in a regional final against Texas A&M.

Mari Jo dreams this month about something more precious than a national championship. Printed on the red sweatshirt that she wore to meet Beason were five words: One day at a time.

Mari Jo is at peace with the waiting, but she struggles with what the end of it will represent.

“Being on the transplant list is a very hard thing to process,” she said. “I know there’s going to be another mom having the worst day of her life — and my child is getting a second chance at life.

“If it comes tomorrow, if it comes in another six months and my daughter stays healthy, that’s all I care about.”

Some say it’s harder to reach the NCAA Women’s Volleyball Final Four than to win it.

Just ask the University of Nebraska fans who counted on making the short trip down the road to Kansas City, Mo., with hopes of watching their top-ranked Huskers at T-Mobile Center in the heart of the city’s downtown.

But fans of the University of Pittsburgh’s women’s volleyball team have no empathy for the Huskers, who’ve won four NCAA women’s volleyball championships — including the last Final Four held in Kansas City eight years ago. Pitt has advanced to its fifth-straight Final Four since 2021, but it has yet to reach the championship match.

The fourth-ranked Panthers (30-4) hope to change that Thursday night in their semifinal match (ESPN, 6:30 p.m. ET) against ninth-ranked Texas A&M (27-4). The Aggies prevented the Huskers from singing, “Kansas City, here I come,” after a shocking upset in Lincoln, Nebraska, last Sunday.

That didn’t stop Panthers coach Dan Fisher from appealing on social media for Huskers fans in attendance to adopt Pitt as their favorite team.

“That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take just the regular Kansas City volleyball fan,” said Fisher before Thursday’s semifinal. “Hopefully, we’ll turn a few and maybe have a little bit of a home-court advantage.”

Courtesy of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Athletics

Before last year’s national semifinal loss at what essentially was a road match at Louisville, Fisher was presented a Louisville Slugger bat as a gift from the city. Despite the painful season-ending outcome, Fisher still followed through with his plan of displaying the bat in his Pitt office.

“I can simultaneously be proud of making the Final Four and be disappointed we didn’t advance,” said Fisher.

The Pitt Panthers are the first team since the Texas Longhorns, from 2012 to ’16, to make it to the NCAA Women’s Volleyball Final Four in five straight years. The difference, though, is that the Longhorns captured two NCAA titles during their five-year run.

Pitt attacker Olivia Babcock, a 6-foot-4 junior from Los Angeles, California, was the Panthers’ ray of light after last year’s semifinal loss against Louisville — a game that Fisher called one of the toughest setbacks in his career.

On Nov. 2, in a volleyball road match at the University of North Carolina, Babcock had the most dominating performance of any individual Division I player this season. Babcock tallied 45 kills, the most for any D-I player since 2019.

Babcock, the American Volleyball Coaches Association national player of the year last year, is a finalist for the same award this year, but with a different surrounding cast.

“In ’23 and ’24, [there were] a lot of the same players, but this year we had to completely restart, and we were able to jell really well,” said Babcock. “I just love this team, and I think they’re really deserving.”

Most disappointing about last year’s semifinal loss was that it was the best Panthers performance to that point in their four-year Final Four run.

This year, the Panthers may have gotten a break. Before top-seeded Nebraska’s loss against Texas A&M, the Huskers had won 33 straight. Perhaps the curse of being a No. 1 seed? The Panthers were the No. 1 overall seed in last year’s NCAA tournament.

“I think a lot of it is mental,” said Andrew Diaz de Padilla, an assistant volleyball coach at Jacksonville University who attended the Panthers’ open practice session Wednesday as a Pitt fan after working at its summer volleyball camps.

“They got here to the Final Four [for the] fifth year in a row, and they finally don’t have to face a Nebraska or a Louisville,” he said.

Of the four teams in Kansas City, the highest-ranked team is No. 2 Kentucky. The total number of national titles among the four teams is two, one each by Kentucky and Wisconsin. Texas A&M is making its first trip to the Final Four.

To open the season in late August, the Panthers traveled to Nebraska for the AVCA First Serve Showcase in a star-studded four-team field. After a loss against Florida, the Panthers began the year 0-2.

But at that time, Babcock said there were some early lessons.

“There were just really high-pressure moments, and the pressure kind of got to us,” she said. “We made mistakes, and I feel like, moving forward, we want to capitalize on those moments. Apply pressure on them instead of letting the pressure get to us.”

Despite dropping those August matches, Fisher sees the same championship potential as he did at the season’s start.

“I think, when we’re playing at our best, we’re really good. We don’t know what the outcome will be, but we certainly know how good we can be, so [we’re] just trying to be ourselves,” he said.

The Panthers went on to win 30 of their next 32 matches this season after the 0-2 start. The only losses after the AVCA First Serve Showcase were against the University of Miami and Stanford University, both on the road.

Without the Huskers or the Longhorns, who have combined to win nine NCAA titles, the door appears to be open for Pitt.

But like the fans from another Rust Belt City who watched their Buffalo Bills reach the Super Bowl in four straight years without winning it, the Panthers don’t want to be just good enough to reach the title match.

They want to win it.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina beach volleyball first-year head coach Jose Loiola announced the program’s 2026 schedule Thursday. The spring slate features two home weekend tournaments, four road trips and a midseason Big 12 preview tournament.

Although official tournament schedules have yet to be finalized, the Gamecocks have identified potential opponents for each weekend. Among those teams, six are coming off appearances in the 2025 NCAA Championship 16-team field.

Dolphin Duals // Jacksonville, Fla. // Feb. 20–21

South Carolina will hit the sand for the first time Feb. 20 in Jacksonville, Fla., opening the season against North Florida. During the opening weekend, the Gamecocks will also face Florida Gulf Coast, Stetson and Jacksonville.

All-Time Series Histories: North Florida (4-6), Florida Gulf Coast (8-2), Stetson (5-10), Jacksonville (11-2)

Wheeler Beach Bash // Columbia, S.C. // Feb. 27–28

The home slate kicks off with the Wheeler Beach Bash. This year’s competition pool features Austin Peay, Coastal Carolina, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Chattanooga.

All-Time Series Histories: Austin Peay (1-0), Coastal Carolina (13-3), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (1-1), Chattanooga (1-0)

Carolina Challenge // Columbia, S.C. // March 13–14

Following a bye weekend, the Gamecocks remain in Columbia to host the Carolina Challenge. The competition slate includes College of Charleston, Jacksonville, UNC Wilmington and fellow Big 12 opponent Boise State.

All-Time Series Histories: College of Charleston (18-2), Jacksonville (11-2), UNC Wilmington (14-0), Boise State (1-0)

TBD // Birmingham, Ala. // March 20–21

The Gamecocks begin a three-tournament road stretch in Birmingham, Ala. South Carolina will compete alongside UAB, Austin Peay, North Alabama and Oregon in the March to May tournament.

All-Time Series Histories: Austin Peay (1-0), North Alabama (1-0), Oregon (1-0), UAB (17-1)

Big 12 Preview // Fort Worth, Texas // March 27–28

As newly added members of the Big 12 Conference, South Carolina will compete in the Big 12 Preview, hosted by reigning national champion TCU. Arizona, Arizona State, Florida State and Boise State round out the field.

All-Time Series Histories: Arizona State (3-3), Arizona (0-0), Boise State (1-0), Florida State (0-27), TCU (3-6)

Wildcat Spring Challenge // Tucson, Ariz. // April 3–4

South Carolina remains out west, traveling to Tucson, Ariz., for the Wildcat Spring Challenge from April 3–4. The tournament field includes Florida Gulf Coast, Arizona, Hawai‘i and Colorado Mesa.

All-Time Series Histories: Florida Gulf Coast (8-2), Arizona (0-0), Hawai‘i (0-2), Colorado Mesa (1-0)

Senior Day // Columbia, S.C. // April 11

Competition at Wheeler Beach concludes April 11 as the program honors seven seniors in a matchup against Stetson.

All-Time Series History: Stetson (5-10)

Deland Cup // DeLand, Fla. // April 17–18

To close the regular season, South Carolina travels to Stetson for the DeLand Cup from April 17–18. UNC Wilmington and Georgia State will also compete.

All-Time Series Histories: UNC Wilmington (14-0), Georgia State (8-13)

Big 12 Conference Championship // Tucson, Ariz. // April 23–27

For the first time in program history, the Gamecocks will compete in the Big 12 Conference Championship, held April 23–27 in Tucson, Ariz.

All-Time Conference Tournament Record (CCSA): 14-18

South Carolina joined the Big 12 Conference in September alongside Boise State and Florida State, joining Arizona, Arizona State and TCU. The Gamecocks previously competed in the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA).