The Fort Payne Wildcat Volleyball team enters its second season under Head Coach Heather Powell and in 2025 the Wildcats look to take the next step. The Wildcats finished 2024 with a record of 25-22.
Fort Payne returns eight starters with six of them being seniors. Lydie Varnadore, Carley Cash, Bailey Templeton, and Alyssa Cooper look to lead the Wildcats this season.
“We have great pieces returning to lead this team. During the summer this group of girls have come to work everyday with a great attitude,” said Powell.
The Wildcats open the 2025 season on the road Aug. 21, at Locust Fork with two matches against Locust Fork and Oneonta. Fort Payne competes in Class-6A Area 14 with Gadsden City and Southside-Gadsden.
“The goal each day is to be better then the day before. If this team continues to come together, we have a chance to do really good things thisseason,”said Powell.
MOUNT VERNON, Iowa – Men’s basketball (10-2, 2-1 A-R-C) closed 2025 with an 86-69 road win over Cornell College (1-10, 0-2 MWC) behind a 29 point and 17 rebound double-double performance from Ethan Yungtum.
Game Summary
First Half
Wartburg jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the opening minutes after five points from Ethan Yungtum and two from Gabe Trujillo
Yungtum and Luke Ladwig each connected on three pointers along with a bucket from Austin Bienemann to take a 18-7 lead after six minutes of play
Drake Wemark and Yungtum each scored four points over the next three minutes to keep the Knights in front 27-11
After Cornell cut the lead to 10 points, Trujillo nailed a three pointer with 4:48 left in the half
The Knights closed the half on an 8-3 run behind scores from Yungtum, Wemark and Kaleb Ferguson
Wartburg led 44-36 at halftime
Second Half
Cornell outscored Wartburg 8-5 in the first three minutes of the second half after scores from Trujillo and Cael Schramm
Wartburg brought the lead to 57-38 following three pointers from Yungtum and Ladwig and a score from Bienemann
Lyle Olsen connected on another Wartburg three pointer as the Knights held a 64-45 lead with just over 10 minutes left to play
The Knights continued to hold their lead over the next three minutes as both Trujillo and Bienemann scored four points each
Bienemann had back-to-back dunks for Wartburg to push the Knights’ lead to 77-58 with 4:46 to go
The Knights continued to match Cornell’s scoring in the final minutes as Yungtum, Bienemann and Ladwig combined for nine points to close out an 86-69 win for Wartburg
Top Performers
Notes/Streaks
Wartburg moves to 2-0 over Cornell this season
First time with multiple wins over Cornell in one season since 2018-19
10th double double of the season for Yungtum
Four blocks is a career high for Schramm
12 blocks over his last five games
10 assists ties Ladwig’s career best
Fifth career game with 10 assists (second this season)
Career high in rebounds for Yungtum (17)
Most by any Knight this season
Third time this season with 10+ threes made as a team
Seventh 20+ point scoring performance for Yungtum this season
Next Time Out
The Knights are back in action on Saturday, Jan. 3 for a home matchup against Nebraska Wesleyan University at 4 p.m.
Huntsville area volleyball teams were well-represented in the AHSAA Elite Eight championship tournament with 11 teams earning spots this season.
Class 5A Guntersville won its sixth state championship while Class 6A Hazel Green advanced to the championship match before falling to Spanish Fort and Austin finished in the Class 7A final four.
Other teams winning to the final eight were Class 7A Bob Jones, which was the only team to push class champion McGill-Toolen to five sets since a Sept. 4 five-setter against Class 6A champion Spanish Fort. Class 6A Hartselle, Class 5A Arab, Brewer and Boaz, Class 4A Madison County and West Morgan and Class 3A Elkmont also earned Elite Eight spots.
The Huntsville Times All-Region team is compiled by the AL.com high school sports staff with input from coaches.
AL.com named Player of the Year, Attacker MVP, Defensive MVP, Setter MVP and Coach of the Year. Award winners are listed separately, but considered first-team selections.
Guntersville’s Mary George Vandergriff sets the ball against Montgomery Catholic during the AHSAA Class 5A volleyball state championship at Bill Harris Arena in Birmingham, Ala., Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Vasha Hunt | preps@al.com)
Vasha Hunt
Mary George Vandergriff, Guntersville
5-8, Sr., Setter
Region-best 1,671 assists, region second-best 24.22 assists per match, 135 kills, 39 blocks, 426 digs, 86 aces
College: UAH
ATTACKER MVP
Bob Jones’ Kendall Buckley celebrates point against McGill-Toolen during Class 7A play in the AHSAA state volleyball tournament at the CrossPlex in Birmingham, Ala., Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Vasha Hunt | preps@al.com)Vasha Hunt
Hazel Green coach CoCo Tate Crutcher works with Camryn Collier during the AHSAA Class 6A volleyball state championship against Spanish Fort at Bill Harris Arena in Birmingham, Ala., Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Vasha Hunt | preps@al.com)
Vasha Hunt
Camryn Collier, Hazel Green
5-7, Sr., Libero
568 digs, 132 assists, 23 aces
College: Calhoun
SETTER MVP
Austin’s Maggie Jae Marsh sets the ball during Class 7A play in the AHSAA North Super Regional volleyball tournament at the Finley Center in Hoover, Ala., Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. (Vasha Hunt | preps@al.com)Vasha Hunt
Guntersville coach Melissa-Paul Gardner \reacts to a point against Montgomery Catholic during the AHSAA Class 5A volleyball state championship at Bill Harris Arena in Birmingham, Ala., Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Vasha Hunt | preps@al.com)
Vasha Hunt
Melissa-Paul Gardner, Guntersville
HONORABLE MENTION
Outside Hitter/Right Side: Sydney Jarmon, Guntersville, Sr.; Emma Guffey, DAR, So.; Isabelle Sutton, Madison Academy, Sr.; Sydney Wallace, New Hope, Sr.; Mackenzie Martin, New Hope, Sr.; Makenzie Irmen, Brewer, Sr.; Emma- Glenn Roby, Decatur, Jr.; Lyndie Springer, Hartselle, Sr.; Abigail Preuitt, Hartselle, Sr.; Rhyan Holloway, St. John Paul II, Sr.; Aliyah Hollingsworth, Boaz, Jr.; Ella Watts, Bob Jones, So.; Julia Celani, James Clemens, So. ; Destiny Burns, Athens Bible, Sr.; Emma Underwood, Elkmont, Sr.; Caroline Cofield, Boaz, Jr.; Alice Morrison, Lindsay Lane, Jr.; Harper Jane Douglas, Decatur, Sr.
Middle: Izzy Fearnside, Madison County, Jr.; Lilly Roberts, Guntersville, Sr.; Shiloh Stanley, Guntersville, So.; Breanna Gentry, Boaz, Jr.; Raygen Muse, West Morgan, Jr.
Setter: Josie Childress, Priceville, Sr.; Madison Moore, Grissom, Jr.; Kylie Murrell, Athens Bible, Fr.; Lily Nelson, Hazel Green, So.; Brooklynn Gonzalez, Buckhorn, Jr.; Sarai McKenzie, Buckhorn, Jr.; Millie Lackey, Arab, Jr.; Rose Garner, Decatur Heritage, Jr.; Gillian Head, DAR, Jr. ; Sarah Bacon, Madison Academy, So.
Defensive Specialist/Libero: Isabella Grant, St. John Paul II, Jr.; Alley Emerson, Brewer, So.; Kayden Gronczniak, Arab, Sr.; Aubree Lagunas, Athens, Jr.; Paige Bradshaw, Madison County, Fr.
LANE ONE: Projecting the top stories of 2026 (10 to 6), with questions about Russia, Israel, esports, doping, college chaos and, of course, track & field
★ The Sports Examiner: Chronicling the key competitive, economic and political forces shaping elite sport and the Olympic Movement.★
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≡ TOP STORIES of 2026: 10 to 6 ≡
The post-Olympic year of 2025 is done and a Winter Olympic year is getting started in 2026. What will the top stories be in the new year? Time for predictions, or – let’s say – projections of the issues that will garner attention and interest. Some good and some not good at all.
10. Russia, Israel and access to sport Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022 and is still fighting its war of aggression. Hamas, the ruling body in Gaza, massacred more than 1,200 Israelis in a coordinated attack on 7 October 2023 and took 250 hostages and Israel responded with a comprehensive attack, leading to a fragile “cease fire,” in effect since 10 October 2025.
In 2022, the International Olympic Committee declared quickly that Russian and Belarusian athletes should not participate in international competitions, including teams. An IOC plan to allow “neutral” individuals who have shown no public support for the war was developed at the end of 2023 and implemented for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. In December, the IOC decided that Russian and Belarusian “youth” competitors and teams can compete internationally without restrictions, subject to federation rules and procedures.
In October 2025, Indonesia – after giving assurances earlier – refused to allow Israeli athletes to enter the country to compete in the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. The IOC ended all discussions about future events in Indonesia and the government has still not said it will allow Israeli participation in the future.
At the Olympic Summit on 11 December 2025, the Olympic stakeholders “reaffirmed that athletes have a fundamental right to access sport across the world, and to compete free from political interference or pressure from governmental organisations.”
So what happens in 2026? Russia and Belarus appear to be in a re-entry phase, but what about Israel and other IOC-recognized countries that have been refused visas, such as Kosovo? And what of the increasing scrutiny on entry into the United States, with the 2026 FIFA World Cup in June and July?
9. The IOC and esports? A 12-year deal between the IOC and the Saudi Arabian National Olympic Committee to create and stage a new, “Olympic Esports Games” was announced with great fanfare in July 2024.
In October 2025, the deal was dead, with the announcement noting in part:
“The IOC, for its part, will develop a new approach to the Olympic Esports Games, taking the feedback from the ‘Pause and Reflect’ process into account, and pursue a new partnership model.
“This approach will be a chance to better fit the Olympic Esports Games to the long-term ambitions of the Olympic Movement and to spread the opportunities presented by the Olympic Esports Games more widely, with the objective of having the inaugural Games as soon as possible.”
What does the IOC do now? Under prior President Thomas Bach (GER), a link to the e-sports community was created, but has stalled. As he noted at the time, the structure of competitive gaming is much different from Olympic sports, with commercial publishers instead of International Federations.
There are perhaps more than three billion active gamers worldwide, but many fewer registered professionals. Will new President Kirsty Coventry’s IOC seek out engagement, as Bach did? Find a blend with active sport contested online, a la the World Rowing Indoor Championships? Do nothing?
Remember this line in “The Godfather” from 1972? Looking to the future, consigliere Tom Hagen told his boss, Vito Corleone, “if we don’t get a piece of that action, we risk everything we have; I mean not now, but ten years from now.”
8. Collegiate sport still in chaos The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee stated that “75% of U.S. Olympians will have competed collegiately as part of their journey to Team USA” for the Paris 2024 Games and that the American collegiate system is a bedrock of the U.S. athlete development program.
In 2025, collegiate athletics surged into chaos as pay-for-play was fully implemented, firstly and mostly for college football and also significantly impacting college basketball for men and women. The now-legal payments to players, and barely-regulated booster pay on top of that, plus the costs for coaches, support and facilities, threatens to crowd out all other sports, including Olympic mainstays such as track & field, swimming, wrestling, volleyball, gymnastics and many others.
The NCAA is looking to Congress for legislative support and some collegiate conferences and the USOPC are beyond the SCORE Act, which requires that the large football-playing schools maintain a 16-sport program which will ensure continued funding of non-revenue sports, which are essentially everything other than football and basketball at most schools.
But the SCORE Act (H.R. 4312) and competing bills have not made it across the finish line yet and do not appear to be close. The Trump Administration is in favor of a Congressional fix to the college sport mess, but has many other priorities.
There is a wide agreement that collegiate sport’s structure is broken, but how to fix it is not clear. We’re here to help: The Sports Examiner proposed a comprehensive fix in 2024, detailed here.
7. What about the Enhanced Games? Under the leadership of then-IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch (ESP), the World Anti-Doping Agency was formed in 1999 to take the global lead against doping in sport, on competitive, ethical and medical safety grounds.
In 2025, a new competition was announced, doing away with doping tests and encouraging “enhanced” athletes to compete in a showcase of “superhumans,” titled the Enhanced Games, planned to be held at Resorts World in Las Vegas, Nevada in late May of 2026.
Widely condemned, the event is to feature a small number of sprint events in track & field and swimming, plus weightlifting, all trying to break world records set by athletes who have competed in competitions which follow the World Anti-Doping Code.
Each event is to have a $500,000 prize purse, with $250,000 for the winner; world-record bonuses will pay $250,000 except for the 50 m Free swim and 100 m dash, which will have $1 million payouts for records.
WADA and many other organizations have labeled the event dangerous and unethical. The promoters have had trouble signing up athletes, who will be instantly banned from Olympic and International Federation competitions. So far, nine swimmers, three track athletes and two weightlifters have agreed to participate, and the Enhanced Games had a lawsuit alleging restraint of trade against WADA, World Aquatics and USA Swimming was dismissed.
But the Enhanced Games got a $40 million lifeline in a complex transaction in November, with the promise of more, with a product line to follow which would be the basis of the business going forward.
Will the Enhanced Games be held? If so, will anyone care? Many in the Olympic world have disowned it, but there will be attention paid to see what happens – if anything – in May.
6. Will ATHLOS succeed where Grand Slam Track failed? One of the big questions of 2025 was whether Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track would succeed. It did not, staging only three of its planned four meets, selling less than 65,000 tickets across eight meet days and staring at $31.4 million in debt at the end of 2025.
Now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware, Grand Slam Track is trying to settle its debts – it owes its athletes about $7 million – and get re-energized with new funding. It will have an uphill climb to regain any trust within the track & field community. But it is trying.
Getting ready to enter the fray, apparently, is ATHLOS, a project of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who staged two showy, end-of-season meets in New York in 2024 and 2025, with a limited event program, strong athlete pay and integrated concerts which had more fan attention than the meets.
Ohanian has promised an ATHLOS “league” beginning in 2026:
“The ATHLOS League introduces a team-based competition model designed for and by the modern athlete. Taking place after the conclusion of the World Athletics season, ATHLOS will feature multiple meets hosted in major cities, culminating in a final championship event.”
The ownership is to include athletes such as Sha’Carri Richardson, Gabby Thomas and Tara Davis-Woodhall. That’s all there is to say at present. The details, with Grand Slam Track’s experience as a cautionary tale, will be fascinating.
Coming New Year’s Day: our projected top-five stories of 2026, including a fight over science and two of the world mega-events.
Rich Perelman Editor
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When it comes to recent college athletics, few stories can match the rise of the Texas A&M volleyball program—a team that went from unranked three years ago to national champions. Their remarkable climb just earned major national recognition, as one of the country’s biggest publications placed their title run among the top women’s sports moments of the year.
On Monday, USA Today released its 2025 Top Ten Women’s Sports Moments, highlighting the most unforgettable achievements across the country. Women’s athletics delivered countless headline‑worthy performances this year, but when it came to upsets, nothing topped Texas A&M’s five‑set stunner over No. 1 Nebraska in the NCAA Tournament.
The Aggies toppled the undefeated favorite on its home floor, in front of a sea of red, to punch their ticket to the Final Four—then dominated the rest of the field on their way to the program’s first‑ever national championship.
Under head coach Jamie Morrison, A&M’s fast‑paced, aggressive style overwhelmed opponents all season. Just as important, Morrison instilled a belief in his team that they belonged on the sport’s biggest stage—and that they were capable of winning it all. The Aggies played like it, too.
Their takedown of the sport’s juggernaut didn’t just shift the tournament. It put the entire volleyball world on notice. And now, that moment has been cemented nationally, earning the No. 10 spot on USA Today’s list of the top women’s sports moments of the year.
Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes, and opinions. Follow Jarrett Johnson on X: @whosnextsports1.
Botsford had to wait just over 100 minutes to secure his first win as head coach at UCF, as the Knights disposed of Chattanooga in four sets in the 2025 season opener. The contest commenced the Black and Gold Classic and an 11-match non-conference slate. It was also the first glance at the swarm of depth present at The Venue, with five Knights registering five or more kills.
Sweeps over Norfolk State and UC Riverside preceded the first road trip of the slate at the 305 Challenge in Miami. UCF demolished Statson in the first contest, outscoring the Hatters by 40 points across just 66 minutes of action. A Saturday night tilt with eventual NCAA second-round participants, Miami, saw the Knights beaten by a combined six points, a learning opportunity for the squad and a glimpse of the level of competition expected in the Big 12.
The weekend capper against hosts FIU featured 13 aces from UCF and the first breakout from English, who boasted eight and the most by a Knight since 2021. From then, the FGCU transfer never left the NCAA national rankings while widening her gap as the active leader in division one.
Returning home for three matchups before opening Big 12 action with Baylor, the Black and Gold produced their most complete performance of the season to open the Knights Invite, sweeping a red-hot Arkansas State team behind a formidable defensive display. The ‘Nauts then took care of business against Florida Atlantic in their first space match of the year in four sets. However, the highs of the past 48 hours were erased after a difficult defeat to Brown, a disappointing result with conference play just two days away.
The Big 12’s most historic program, Baylor, handed the Knights a three-set loss, with a contested third-set still supplying indications of future ranked contests. Before the rest of league play resumed, UCF ventured to the Crimson Classic in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, striving to bounce back into the win column.
English was at the forefront of a well-rounded display against Memphis, tallying a career-high nine aces, tied for the second most by an athlete in a four-set NCAA match this season, to set the tone. A day later, the Knights disposed of the hosts in another four-set clinic, with first-year’s Haley and Porter playing substantial time in the contest. With Botsford’s first non-conference slate with the Knights completed, a 9-2 clip underlined the first sign of growth compared to a 7-3 record a year prior.
