The Syracuse volleyball team is complete, and the 2025 squad has arrived on campus for summer classes and workouts. The Orange welcome 11 newcomers to the 2025 squad which returns seven from last year’s team than went 15-17 overall and 3-17 in the ACC.

“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.

 

Full Schedule

PRINCETON, N.J. – Highlighted by seven home matches and three tournaments, the Princeton University women’s volleyball team announced its 2025 schedule Tuesday afternoon.

Along with three tournaments (James Madison, Towson/Coppin State/Penn State), the Tigers host seven matches inside Dillon Gymnasium.

2025 opens for Princeton at the JMU Tournament in Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Sept. 5-6, where the Tigers will face Lehigh, Bellarmine and the Dukes.

Following the JMU Tournament, Princeton will play at the Towson/Coppin State Tournament from Sept. 12-13. Opponents include both Towson and Coppin State along with Iona.

Non-conference play wraps up in State College, Pennsylvania, from Sept. 19-20. The Tigers will take on defending National Champion Penn State, who ended 2024 with a 35-2 record, a 19-2 Big Ten record and its eighth national title in program history, along with Central Michigan.

Ivy League play opens inside Dillon Gymnasium on Oct. 3 and Oct. 4 against two opponents who joined Princeton at the 2024 conference tournament, Brown and Yale. The Tigers then travel north to face Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire, on Oct. 10 then Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Oct. 11.

Princeton returns to Dillon Gymnasium to host Cornell on Oct. 17, Columbia on Oct. 18 and the University of Pennsylvania on Oct. 24.

Four consecutive road matches follow; Yale (Oct. 31), Brown (Nov. 1), Columbia (Nov. 7) and Cornell (Nov. 8). Regular season play ends at home against Harvard on Nov. 14 and Dartmouth on Nov. 15.

Postseason play begins with the Ivy League Tournament, hosted by the No. 1 seed, from Nov. 21-23. The NCAA Tournament starts with the first and second rounds from Dec. 5-7, then regionals from Dec. 12-15 and the National Championship from Dec. 19-22.

The Tigers, who won the 2024 regular season championship and earned the No. 1 seed at the Ivy League Tournament, will aim to return to the NCAA Tournament in 2025. Led by three-time Ivy League Coach of the Year Sabrina King, the Tigers return three-time All-Ivy selection Lucia Scalamandre, two-time All-Ivy selection Sydney Draper and 2024 All-Ivy selection Jackie Onyechi. The trio will be joined by seniors Valerie Nutakor and Ella Bunde, juniors Sydney Bold, Erin McNair and Ava Harrington, sophomores Sylvia Bunde, Ashtyn Sims, Ashley Duckworth and Nicki Gaito along with the incoming Class of 2029.

The Big East Conference has signed a new, six-year digital media rights agreement with ESPN, conference officials announced Tuesday.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Under the agreement, ESPN will add hundreds of live Big East events, including “a minimum of 75 women’s basketball and 200 Olympic sports events,” which will stream on ESPN+ annually beginning in the 2025-26 academic season.

The extra events will also include a minimum of 25 non-conference games annually for Big East men’s basketball.

The deal comes as ESPN plans to offer its flagship programming on an as-yet unnamed direct-to-consumer digital streaming platform, which it expects to launch this fall. The new platform will be separate from but include its current ESPN+ digital offering, which shows some sports and non-live sports content.

The deal reunites the Big East Conference with ESPN, which held the broadcast rights to the conference from 1980 to 2013. It fills a gap for the sports and entertainment network that was left after it lost the media rights to the Big Ten conference to CBS, Fox and NBC in 2022.

“This exciting partnership with ESPN reinforces our commitment to placing Big East teams front and center on the leading digital sports platform,” Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman said. “Streaming on ESPN+ gives all 22 of our sports — especially women’s basketball and Olympic sports — the visibility they’ve earned and the access our fans expect.”

“We’re pleased to welcome the Big East back to ESPN,” said Nick Dawson, ESPN senior vice president, programming and acquisitions. “This agreement returns one of the country’s premier conferences and its tradition of excellence to ESPN platforms.”

The deal with ESPN comes just over a year after the 11-team conference announced a new six-year TV deal that begins with the 2025-26 season. That deal was estimated at $480 million, with annual rights payments to each school in the range of $75 million to $80 million per year.

That new contract includes coverage on Fox Sports (Fox, FS1, FS2), as well as on NBC Sports (NBC, Peacock) and TNT Sports (TNT, TBS, truTV and Max).

RICHMOND, Va. – Six University of Richmond student-athletes were named to the 2024-25 Virginia Sports Information Directors (VaSID) Academic All-State Team. To qualify, student-athletes must be sophomores in academic standing with a minimum 3.25 cumulative grade point average. The VaSID All-State Team recognized 216 student-athletes representing 36 institutions across the Commonwealth of Virginia.
 
Richmond’s honorees include women’s basketball’s Addie Budnik, swimming and diving’s Katie Chignell, women’s cross country and track and field’s Laurel Kurtz and Morgan Lyons, baseball’s Brady O’Brien and men’s lacrosse’s Joe Sheridan.
 
Budnik earned her fourth straight VaSID Academic All-State honor. A master of business administration major, she led the Spiders to a historic season. Budnik helped Richmond win back-to-back Atlantic 10 regular season titles and earned the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament win, a dominant 74-49 victory over Georgia Tech in Los Angeles. She was named to the A-10 All-Conference Second Team and All-Academic Team, the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team and was honored as the VaSID Defensive Player of the Year. Budnik closed her career ranked third on Richmond’s all-time scoring list with 1,897 points.
 
Chignell earned her first All-State laurel after helping the Spiders to a runner-up finish at the Atlantic 10 Championships. The health studies major won gold in the 400 free relay, setting a new program record with a time of 3:19.32, and placed fifth in the 800 free relay. She also contributed with several top-15 finishes in the finals.
 

Kurtz, a leadership and rhetoric & communication major, earned A-10 All-Conference First Team honors for the second straight year in cross country. During the indoor season, she helped Richmond finish second at the Atlantic 10 Championships with a seventh-place finish in the 5,000 meters. At the outdoor A-10 Championships, she placed seventh in the 10,000 meters. She capped her career with a gold medal in the 10K at the Outdoor IC4A/ECAC Championships.
 
Lyons, a health studies major, helped the Spiders to a runner-up finish at the Indoor A-10 Championships, contributing to medals in two relay races. She helped Richmond win silver in the distance medley relay with a time of 11:38.63 and gold in the 4×800 relay with a time of 9:03.23. At the Outdoor A-10 Championships, she again earned gold in the 4×800 with a time of 8:47.46. In her final collegiate race, she helped Richmond win gold in the 4×800 at the Outdoor IC4A/ECAC Championships.
 
O’Brien, a data analytics major, finished the regular season ranked ninth in the nation with a .777 slugging percentage and 11th in both home runs (20) and RBIs (72). A 2025 Dick Howser Trophy semifinalist, he ended the season with a 22-game on-base streak, 25 multi-hit games and 19 multi-RBI games. He was named to the A-10 All-Academic Team in May and also earned CSC Academic All-District and ABCA/Rawlings NCAA Division I All-Atlantic Region Second Team honors.
 
Sheridan, a biochemistry and molecular biology major, helped lead the Spiders to a regular season and Atlantic 10 Championship title. He also contributed to Richmond’s first NCAA Tournament win, a 13-10 victory over North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Sheridan earned USILA All-America Honorable Mention, Inside Lacrosse All-America Honorable Mention, First Team All-Atlantic 10, A-10 All-Academic honors and was named the A-10 Tournament Most Outstanding Performer. 
 

MOSCOW, Idaho – Summer is in session, the Vandals are coming back to town, and the schedule has been released. Live volleyball is closer than we think. 

As summer training rolls on, Vandal fans get the opportunity to meet the newcomers taking the court for Idaho Volleyball in time for the 2025 season. Since the end of last year, ten newcomers have arrived in Moscow from the transfer portal and high school levels. Three of which enrolled in time for the spring, which leaves seven to make their Idaho introduction. 

First up among the new members of the Vandal family is Koen Makaula.

MEET KOEN

A rising junior middle blocker originally from Kailua, Hawaii, Koen becomes the second Vandal on the 2025 roster to hail from the Aloha State. Finishing her prep career at Punahou School in 2023, she committed to the University of Nevada.

As a freshman with the wolfpack, Koen played in 32 total sets, earning an ATK% of .417 alongside six kills and four blocks against Boise State that November, all season highs. She finished her first college season with totals of 25 kills, 22 total blocks, 11 digs, and 36.5 total points, according to Nevada Athletics.

In her sophomore campaign, Makaula took it up a notch from ’23, appearing in 48 sets and helping the Wolfpack on offense and defense. She recorded a season-high three total blocks vs. Oregon State early in the year, followed by a career-high eight kills and nine points the next day vs. Cal State Bakersfield. She would end her second season in Reno with 31 kills, 19 blocks, and eight digs in 48 sets played.

Now a rising junior entering her first season in black and gold, Koen provides valuable Mountain West experience and looks to bring success to Moscow, a task she is excited for.

“I feel very grateful and excited to rep the Vandals, and I am so ready to be a part of this culture and make the most of this opportunity that [head] coach Romana [Redondo Kriskova] has blessed me with,” said Makaula. 

A culture is building among Vandal Volleyball, and the newest members of the family are taking notice. 

“I was drawn to Idaho because of the sense of belonging I felt after having many conversationgs with the coaches and girls on the team. Coach Ro got to know me on a personal level first, which I really appreciated.”

FOLLOW THE VANDALS

To stay up to date with Vandal Volleyball, follow the team on Instagram (vandalvolleyball), X (IdahoVolleyball) and visit govandals.com