A rising senior, Shelton was named to the preseason team after a stellar first year in the conference where she earned first team All-SEC honors.

Shelton had a breakout junior season as she led the team with 455 kills and 4.38 kills/set. She ranked second on the team in digs with 204 and in blocks with 93.

The junior tallied double-digit kills in every meet of the season, including a season-best 27 against Texas. She recorded 20-plus kills on nine occasions and notched eight double-doubles on the year. In the season finale against Pitt, she recorded a career-high 7.0 blocks.

Shelton reached the 1,000-kill mark in 2024, the 15th Sooner to achieve the feat. Her 1,118 career kills are good for 14th all-time. Her 455 kills in 2024, place her second all-time for kills in a single season.

The preseason coaches poll was also announced Tuesday, with the Sooners picked to finish seventh in the league after a sixth-place finish in 2024. Kentucky was predicted to win the 2025 SEC crown, while three schools received first place votes.

For updates, follow @OU_Volleyball on Twitter and Instagram, or like Oklahoma Volleyball on Facebook.

2025 SEC Volleyball Preseason Coaches Poll

1. Kentucky (9) – 218

2. Texas (6) – 216

3. Texas A&M (1) – 195

4. Missouri – 182

5. Florida – 169

6. Tennessee – 149

7. Oklahoma – 143

8. LSU – 115

9. Georgia  – 98

10. Ole Miss – 97

11. Arkansas – 80

12. Vanderbilt – 77

13. Auburn – 76

14. South Carolina – 42

15. Mississippi State – 38

16. Alabama – 25

 

“We are very excited about this new group that is coming in because we feel like it’s a good mix of really young and talented players and some athletes coming in with experience previously competing at a high level around the country,” Syracuse head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam said. “We truly invested a lot of time and effort into this class, not just evaluating them based on how good they are as athletes but even more how good they are as people. We really paid attention to making sure we recruited the right characters.”

Syracuse welcomes five middle blockers in Marisse Turner, Kaliya Ndiaye, Oreva Evivie, Soana Lea’ea and Mari Lawton. Outside hitters Marie Laurio, Elizabeth Turner and Gabriella McLaughlin will help strengthen the Orange attack while SU also adds defensive specialist Reese Teves and Rana Yamada. Additionally, Syracuse added setter Tehya Maeva this offseason, a junior transfer from Nevada by way of San Diego, California.

Marisse Turner is a 6-foot graduate transfer from Long Beach, CA. Turner attended Marymount High School and joins the Orange from California State University – Fullerton where she appeared in 49 sets across 14 matches. Ndiaye is a 6-foot-4 middle blocker from Aliso Viejo, CA. She played at Santa Margarita Catholic where she helped SMHS to a 25-15 record a s a senior.

Evivie is a 6-foot middle blocker from Charlotte, NC, who began her collegiate career at Virginia Tech before spending her final two seasons of undergrad at FGCU where she helped the Eagles to a 27-5 overall record and a 15-1 mark in the Atlantic Sun Conference appearing in all 32 matches as a senior in 2024.

Lea’ea joins the Orange from UC Irvine where she appeared in 114 sets across 41 matches after redshirting the 2022 season. The 6-foot-1 Las Vegas, Nevada native was an All-WCAL Second Team honoree out high school at Saint Francis (CA). Lawton, a 6-foot junior transfer from San Jose State joins the Orange from Mililani, Hawaii, where she won an ILH and state championship as a senior en route to earning All-State recognition. At San Jose State she appeared in 32 matches over her first two seasons totaling 78 kills and 64 blocks.

Laurio is a 5-foot-10 middle blocker from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who earned All-Region and All-State recognition each year from 2022-24. She was named Saline High School’s Most Valuable Player a junior and senior. She’s joined by freshman Elizabeth Turner who hails from Pine Bluff, Arkansas and has spent time in Japan playing for Kizankino Sho Club the last four years. While attending Seiwa Joshi Gakuin High School in Japan, she helped her varsity team finish No. 1 in the Sasebo region in each of her final two seasons and was named the Best Hitter and MVP for the DODEA Pac-East in 2022.

The final middle blocker added for the 2025 season is Nevada transfer Gabriella McLaughlin. The 5-foot-8 senior played three seasons for the Wolfpack where she was named All-Mountain West in 2024. She is a College Sports Communicators Academic All-District honoree in 2023 and led the team in kills (443), kills per set (3.82) and was second in digs with 265 in 2024.

McLaughlin and Maeva will reconnect in Syracuse after having shared the court at Nevada the past two seasons.

Teves is a 5-foot-7 sophomore transfer from Waipahu, Hawaii. She appeared in 25 matches playing in 79 sets at Long Island University in 2024 and tallied 59 digs (0.75 per set) and secured 21 aces with five assists. Joining Teves as a defensive specialist and libero is Yamada, a 5-foot-6 junior from Kanagawa, Japan, who played most recently at Western Arizona.

“We want to build a team that the Syracuse community can see themselves in,” Ganesharatnam added. “We want to be a team that’s truly blue collar, has grit and works hard. We want the relentless pursuit of excellence not just on the court but also in the classroom and in our community. We want to be engaged, and I feel like this group will do that. We want to strengthen our core values and really pursue that.”

The first official practice of the 2025 season is slated for later this month on July 31.

For more on Syracuse volleyball, follow the Orange on social media @CuseVB.

 

The San Diego State water polo team matched the Golden Coast Conference (GCC) high with 18 student-athletes garnering GCC All-Academic Team honors for the 2024-25 school year, the league announced on Tuesday from its offices in Aliso Viejo, Calif.

Since SDSU’s inaugural season of water polo, in 1995, it had never earned double digit conference academic honors in five successive campaigns prior to this year. Last season, SDSU set a program-high with 19 honorees. In 2021 and 2023, the Aztecs set and then equaled the previous program-record with 16 conference academic distinctions.

With its haul of 15 honors in 2022 combined with the 11 that were bestowed on the team in 2019, SDSU has for the sixth time in the last seven years taken home double-digit GCC awards for classroom excellence. The 18 honors earned this year equal the most of any team in the GCC.

This marks the fifth consecutive year the Aztecs have taken home double-digit honors, and the 18 Aztecs were among 111 women who were recognized by the GCC for their success in the classroom.

For inclusion, players must be full-time students with at least one year completed at their current institution, have played in more than 50 percent of their team’s games for the season, and hold a minimum of a 3.0 cumulative GPA.

The 18 Aztecs who met the requirements are: seniors Amanda Chambers, Rose Kanemy, Brooke Lee, Sofia Righetti and Luna Sarmiento, juniors Tiaare Ahovelo, Hannah Bell, Sydney Gish, Megan Holcomb, Aiyana Mendoza, Gabrielle Muehring, Shannon Murphy, and Claudia Valdes, sophomores Lucy Bullock, Sammi Byers and Mimi Stoupas, and freshmen Sierra Johnson and Julianne Stark.

These are the fourth GCC academic honors for Chambers, Kanemy, and Lee, while Righetti, Gish, Murphy and Valdes earned the distinction for the third time. Ahovelo, Bullock, Byers and Stoupas are receiving the designation for the second time in their careers and the remaining seven: Bell, Holcomb, Johnson, Mendoza, Muehring, Sarmiento and Stark are first-time honorees.

Since joining the GCC in 2014, San Diego State players have been honored by the conference 136 times for their academic success.

Under the guidance of head coach Dana Ochsner, San Diego State finished the 2025 season ranked No. 22 in the final Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) poll. It compiled a 15-15 record, 4-3 in conference play, and finished in fourth place in the GCC Championship tournament.

2025 Golden Coast Conference All-Academic Honors
San Diego State Honorees
Tiaare Ahovelo (JR, GK)
Hannah Bell (JR, CTR)
Lucy Bullock (SO, DEF)
Sammi Byers (SO, ATT)
Amanda Chambers (SR, ATT)
Sydney Gish (JR, ATT)
Megan Holcomb (JR, UTL)
Sierra Johnson (FR, ATT)
Rose Kanemy (SR, ATT)
Brooke Lee (SR, ATT)
Aiyana Mendoza (JR, UTL)
Gabrielle Muehring (JR, UTL)
Shannon Murphy (JR, ATT)
Sofia Righetti (SR, DEF)
Luna Sarmiento (SR, DEF)
Julianne Stark (FR, ATT)
Mimi Stoupas (SO, CTR)
Claudia Valdes (JR, ATT)

With the honor, Svozilova becomes the first CSC Academic All-American in program history. She is also one of just five beach volleyball players from the 46 total student-athletes nominated to the three NCAA Division I Academic All-America teams.

Svozilova excelled on the sand and in the classroom, boasting a 3.97 GPA and graduating with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

A native of Brno, Czech Republic, Svozilova produced one of the best seasons in program history, finishing the 2025 campaign with a 26-5 record, which ranked second on the team. She earned AVCA Second Team All-American, AVCA Top Flight, CUSA Pair of the Year, and CUSA All-Conference First Team honors. Alongside Ashleigh Adams, Svozilova had a record-breaking season, tying the program record for single-season pair victories with an incredible 25-5 record, earning all of her wins on court one. Adams and Svozilova opened the season with a program-record-breaking 13-1 record, including a perfect 9-0 season-opening winning streak. The pair was named CUSA Pair of the Week a league-record four consecutive times (Feb. 25, March 4, March 11, March 18).

At the CUSA Championship, the duo was perfect, going 4-0 with three-straight set wins at the No. 1 position against No. 9 seed Jacksonville State, twice against No. 2 seed Tulane, and defeating No. 4 UAB’s top pair in three sets to earn CUSA All-Tournament Team honors.

Individually, Svozilova earned ranked wins in 2025 against No. 3 & No. 4 TCU, including a victory over 2025 national champion TCU’s 2024 Paris Olympian and top pair of Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno, in addition to defeating No. 7 Florida State, No. 10 LSU, No. 13 Texas, No. 13 & No. 20 Georgia State, No. 14 Washington, and No. 17 FIU twice.

The CSC Academic All-America Women’s At-Large teams, selected by College Sports Communicators, recognize the nation’s top student-athletes for their combined performances in competition and in the classroom. To be eligible, a student-athlete must hold a 3.50 cumulative GPA or better, in addition to being a key contributor on the sand.

FOLLOW THE SANDY OWLS

For updates, follow @FAUBeachVB on X and Instagram, or like FAU Beach Volleyball on Facebook.

 

MORAGA, Calif. — Saint Mary’s Beach Volleyball is adding a somewhat familiar face to their 2026 roster, with the signing of transfer Barett Nolan. Nolan spent the last two seasons at NCAA Division II Beach Volleyball powerhouse Colorado Mesa, helping her team to 39 wins over the last two years, including back-to-back trips to the AVCA Small College Beach Championships. A season ago, Saint Mary’s and Colorado Mesa matched up three times, with Nolan appearing in all three matches, so the Gaels coaching staff has seen the incoming grad student’s abilities up close and personal. 

“We’re thrilled to welcome Barett Nolan to the Saint Mary’s Beach Volleyball family! Barett brings a competitive spirit, strong work ethic, and a love for the game that aligns perfectly with our team culture.” exclaimed Saint Mary’s Beach Volleyball Head Coach Janice Harrer, “At Colorado Mesa, Barett spent time both as a blocker and defender, and looks forward to strengthening her skills under the SMC Coaching staff. As a Grad student, she will provide maturity and leadership within our program.”   

In two seasons with the Mavericks of Colorado Mesa, Nolan amassed a record of 39-26, playing in the third, fourth and fifth flights. She began her collegiate career at Irvine Valley College, where she was a teammate with current Gael Chloe Swanson, pairing with her for a majority of her sophomore season. Nolan and Swanson both helped lead the IVC Lasers to the 2022 state championship. Nolan brought her winning pedigree to Grand Junction, Colorado, where she played two seasons at CMU. After a solid 18-12 mark in her first year with the Mavericks, Nolan led the team with 21 wins this past year, including a pair against the Gaels, giving her the most wins of any player on her team. 

Nolan joins fellow incoming transfer Alisia Silverthorn as part of an incoming class of that features six newcomers. Pair events are set to start for the Gaels in the late Fall, while team competition will begin for the Gaels in late February.

#GaelsRise

Mizzou Volleyball was picked to finish fourth in the SEC’s preseason coaches’ poll released Tuesday, the team’s highest projection since the COVID-shortened 2020 season.

Dawn Sullivan’s Tigers garnered 182 points, falling behind preseason favorite Kentucky (218, nine of 16 first place votes), Texas (216, six of 16 first place votes) and Texas A&M (195, one of 16 first place votes).

The tally placed the team ahead of Florida, which received 169 points after a tumultuous offseason that saw the retirement of legendary head coach Mary Wise and transfer of superstar Kennedy Martin.

Mizzou faces Kentucky at the Hearnes Center late in the season, Nov. 7, but will go through a gauntlet by facing Texas, Texas A&M and Florida on the road in the span of five matches from Sep. 24 to Oct. 10.

Sullivan’s squad also faces Tennessee in Knoxville Oct. 31, meaning they will face four of the conference’s projected top six teams away from Columbia.

Maya Sands also received an individual honor, being named to the Preseason All-SEC Team. The Tigers’ libero was named an Honorable Mention All-American last season and has won SEC Libero of the Year in back-to-back seasons.

She missed last year’s preseason list despite being the defending libero of the year, raising some eyebrows, and went on to make the decision look foolish. SEC coaches avoided the possibility of a similar fate this season, when Sands is expected to be one of a few players vying to become the nation’s best collegiate libero.

A few of her teammates, however, now enter the season with some bulletin board material.

Starting setter Marina Crownover was left off the list despite being a Second Team All-SEC selection last season and ranking second in the conference in assists per set while leading one of the top offenses in the nation.

Tennesse’s Caroline Kerr (who also earned second team honors in 2024) and Mokihana Tufono of Ole Miss were the two setters named to the preseason team instead. Kerr was named an Honorable Mention All-American last year, making her the most obvious choice, but Tufono was a bit of a surprise due to Crownover’s advantage in accolades and statistics.

Also missing from the group of all-conference honorees was incoming outside hitter Caylen Alexander, who was an Honorable Mention All-American and the Big West Player of the Year in 2024.

That decision was less surprising, as all seven hitters included in the list of 15 players were All-Americans or received honorable mentions last season, though she held the statistical advantage in several categories over multiple hitters named instead.

Sullivan and her players have well exceeded expectations as a team and individually each of the past two years, making the exclusion of Crownover and Alexander seem like a result that could cause some regret among the conference’s coaches come December.

Mizzou begins its highly anticipated season, following a Sweet Sixteen berth last year, in less than two months.