The 2025 season is on the horizon, and the NIU women’s volleyball team is starting to transform. After two straight seasons with a losing record, head volleyball coach Sondra D’Amore has a vision that just might materialize this year. With more pieces falling into place for the Huskies in the midst of their rebuild, NIU could show flashes of cohesiveness that burn longer and brighter.
Entering her third year at the helm, D’Amore is aware of the team’s past struggles. The state of her roster, and what each individual brings to the squad, leaves her optimistic for a winning season.
“I think we’ve learned and grown a lot as a program from the first two years,” D’Amore said. “Obviously, they were challenging; it’s not where we want to be. We feel that we’re rebuilding each year, and we have a lot more pieces in place this year to find success on the floor. Ultimately, that’s what the program needs to do to grow. We have a young team that needs a lot of experience still, but we’re also a group returning that got a lot of experience last year. I think with that combination, we’re going to compete hard and find ways to get more wins. That’s the goal for the program. We’ve got to continue to get better and produce wins.”
‘YOUTH IS THE NAME OF THE GAME’
Nearly all of volleyball’s eggs are currently in the underclassmen basket. D’Amore’s roster is composed of seven freshmen, five sophomores, three juniors and one senior. With so many fresh faces, the Huskies might find different ways to surprise teams with various young guns on the floor and from the bench.
“Youth is a great thing to have,” D’Amore said. “We’re very athletic; we’re fast. A young team doesn’t know what they don’t know in a good way; they just want to go out there and compete hard. Everyone wants to be on the floor, and I think that’s an awesome thing to have. With that, you also have to learn how to play at this level, and I think there’s going to be some challenges in that too. You’re going to see some really great moments, and then you’re going to see some moments that we’re going to have to clean up because they just haven’t done it before.”
With the excitement the new recruits bring to the table, inexperience on the collegiate level has room to present itself on the court. Even with help from the coaching staff and returners, collegiate proficiency might only come with time.
“The good is really good, and we’re definitely playing at a higher level than last year, but there are still some little things that are going to take time for us to develop,” D’Amore said. “That can really hurt you in matches, too; that’s the youth piece. We’re trying to just teach, teach, teach as much as we can so we can fight that a little bit this year. It is what it is. It’s the roster that you have. Experience really can’t be taught; they just have to go through it to learn.”
SOMETHING TO PROVE
Seven players out of D’Amore’s 16 are returners this season. Those seven endured a 4-24 season last year, and just might be coming back with a vengeance. D’Amore described her returning players as a key piece to finding success on and off the court this season.
“I think their experience prior to this year is invaluable,” D’Amore said. “I think they know ultimately what it takes to have a different season than they had last year. I think they all want that; they all want to be greater. They want to have an everlasting impact on the program, and they know that change is needed for that to happen. They’re gonna have to step up in roles on and off the floor in order to get good results.”
This season’s returners are looking to flip Huskie volleyball on its head. Right-side hitter Alexa Hayes might pull out all the stops in her senior season. Sophomores like outside hitters Ava Grevengoed and Emma McCartney are looking to deem last season’s record a fluke. The bitter taste of 2024 is likely still fresh in their minds; how they’ll respond this year is yet to be seen.
HAND-PICKED PLAYERS
For the first time in her run as head coach at NIU, everyone on the roster was recruited by D’Amore herself. This could prove to be a key difference in the team’s success this year. D’Amore depicts the recruiting process as a way to get her future athletes to buy into her vision of the program.
“You’re able to connect with (the recruit) as a person,” D’Amore said. “You’re able to share a like-minded goal for the program. There’s the ability for us as coaches to push them, and there’s the ability for them to be able to receive that and grow faster. That’s really what we’re trying to do: Be able to coach a group that is ready to receive and make changes quicker, because we are young and still have a lot of room to grow.”
The success of the program falls on both the players and the coaching staff. D’amore seems to have finished her search after recruiting sophomore libero Jordyn Tynsky, freshman setter Ellie Smith and junior middle blocker Autumn Flynn this off-season. With other new faces set to make their NIU volleyball debut this season, D’Amore expressed coachability and adaptability as key traits in her recruits.
“Coaches are only half of the battle there. You need a group that is coachable and can make those changes quickly, especially in season when they have so many matches,” D’Amore said. “ I think we’re all excited for that, and hope that it can translate as much as we’d like it to in our minds. We’ve got to continue to push this group into making that transition happen.”
The Huskies kick off their season in the Stetson Hatters Invitational, with their first regular-season match against the Lamar University Cardinals at 10 a.m. Friday in DeLand, Florida.
