Milestones Keep Coming for Cavaliers

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Nearly a decade has passed since a University of Virginia volleyball team finished with a winning record, but an examination of the record book shows the program has enjoyed periodic success since its inaugural season in 1979.

UVA won 29 matches in 1989, 24 in 1996, 26 in 1998, 25 in 2003, and 23 in 2006. The Cavaliers didn’t hit the 20-win mark in 1999, but they still advanced to the NCAA tournament for the second straight season.

“I don’t like when people say we’re building a program,” Virginia head coach Shannon Wells said Sunday. “I think we’re rebuilding this program. There was a time that this program was in the NCAA tournament. There was a time this team was in the ACC top three, top five consistently, and that’s what we’re striving to be [again].”

Wells took over an ailing program in April 2021, and progress has been hard to achieve in a conference that’s become a national power in volleyball. Still, there were positive signs along the way, and Wells’ fourth team at UVA is in the midst a breakthrough season, much to the delight of the players who endured challenging times with her.

“It’s just an indescribable feeling,” outside hitter Brooklyn Borum said.

After a weekend in which they swept two formidable ACC opponents—then-No. 16 Florida State on Friday night and Miami on Sunday afternoon—the Hoos are 13-2 overall and 3-1 in league play. They received 10 votes in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll released Monday.

“I think this weekend was a huge stepping stone for our team,” Wells said after UVA secured wins over FSU and Miami in the same season for the first time since 2010.

Friday night at Memorial Gymnasium, the Cavaliers ended a long streak, defeating a ranked opponent for the first time since 2010.

Sunday’s match was at John Paul Jones Arena, where Virginia hosted the second-ever volleyball match at that venue. In the first, UVA needed a reverse sweep to get past Virginia Tech last year. They needed only three sets to dispatch the Hurricanes (10-5, 1-3), winning 25-21, 25-22 and 25-16 on Sunday.

This is the same Miami team that went on the road last month and upset then-No. 1 Texas, which has won the past two NCAA titles.

“This is a really elite team that’s going to do some damage the rest of the year,” Wells said of Miami. “Florida State, same thing.”

The Sunday matinee at JPJ attracted a boisterous crowd of 2,892 at JPJ, the second-largest ever for a UVA volleyball match in Charlottesville. Among those in the stands were several dozen former Cavaliers, including Deanna Zwarich.

“I’m so proud of the program,” Zwarich said. “It just makes me feel awesome to have been a part of it.”

Zwarich, who ranks No. 2 in career kills at Virginia, starred on the 1998 and ’99 teams, the only ones in program history to reach the NCAA tournament. In 2002, she and Mary Frances Scott, another Cavalier star in ’98 and ’99, were named to the ACC’s 50^th anniversary volleyball team.

About a dozen former players from Zwarich’s era were among the alumni who returned to Charlottesville this past weekend, and the current team embraced them.

“We were able to talk to them Saturday morning,” Borum said, “and we did a little bit of speed-dating type thing. So we got to go to different tables and hear about their experiences.”

Members of the ’98 and ’99 teams were introduced between the first and second sets Sunday at JPJ and received a warm ovation after a video commemorating those seasons was shown.

“In the last four years since Shannon’s been here, she’s been involving us alumni,” Zwarich said, “and it feels so good to feel part of it again after so many years. And I have my whole team here. It’s just amazing.”

Zwarich, who lives in Maine, has a 15-year-old daughter who’s attended volleyball camps at Virginia.

“It’s just so nice to feel like she’s a part of it, and it makes me feel a part of it again,” Zwarich said. “It feels good to have the program be pulling from the community and pulling the alumni back. There’s just an excitement to it. It’s all a testament to this team and the culture that Shannon is growing in the program.”

Wells said she and her staff have prioritized connecting the program with former players such as Zwarich.

“It’s an honor to put on a Virginia uniform and play for those women, and we know that this program is so much bigger than ourselves,” she said. “We’re just renting it. We’re here for the moment. [Players] get a few years, four years, and hopefully I’m here for a really long time. But at the end of the day, this program is going to outlive all of us. And so what can we do while we’re here to make it better? We  think about those women a lot and what they went through and how can we just continue to put this program back to where it was.”

Virginia won its first three matches this season before losing 3-0 to Coastal Carolina. The Cavaliers avenged that defeat the next day, knocking off the Chanticleers 3-2, and put together an eight-match winning streak before losing Sept. 29 at NC State.

To Wells, her team’s performance Sept. 27 in Winston-Salem, N.C., was especially encouraging. After dropping the first two sets against Wake Forest, Virginia took the next three to win its ACC opener for the first time since 2015.

“It’s been great to be able to tell our players that, hey, this is the first time this happened since this and since this,” Wells said. “We try to celebrate those little milestones.”

Two days later, the Hoos weren’t as sharp against the Wolfpack, and they headed home disappointed with the performance. Back in Charlottesville, they practiced well and then delivered emphatic statements against FSU and Miami.

“Now I think they really know what we can be and how good we can be,” Wells said.

Apart from posting two wins over Virginia Tech, including a sweep in the season finale, the Hoos produced few highlights in 2023. Even so, Wells expected her team to take a significant step forward this fall.

“We always felt like this was going to be a big season for us, just with the experience that we have and the two really incredible athletes up here,” Wells said, motioning to Borum and libero Milan Gomillion, who joined her at the post-match press conference Sunday.

Borum and Gomillion are among the six seniors on the roster, along with middle blocker Abby Tadder, setter Ashley Le, defensive specialist/libero Heyli Velasquez and outside hitter Elayna Duprey, a transfer from Virginia Tech who enrolled at UVA in January.

Against Florida State, Duprey had a match-high 14 kills, and Gomillion finished with 19 digs. Sophomore right side Lauryn Bowie and junior middle Kate Dean each had four blocks.

Duprey led the Hoos in kills against the Hurricanes, too, with a match-high 12. Bowie and Dean each had eight kills, and Tadder added seven. Gomillion and Borum contributed 12 digs apiece, and junior defensive specialist Kate Johnson had 11.

“I don’t think we’re a one-man show,” Borum said Sunday. “I think we’re all in it together and we’re all putting in the work at practice and we’re just seeing the beginning … I think we constantly work on this at practice, and it just showed in the games today.”

Wells came to UVA from the University of Florida, where she was associate head coach in a perennially powerful program. She sees no reason Virginia can’t be elite in the sport too, and athletic director Carla Williams agreed when Wells interviewed for the job.

“We felt like volleyball here could win championships,” Wells said. “Everybody else wins, so why not volleyball? There’s a lot of good things that can happen here.”

Next up for the Hoos are two ACC road matches. They play Friday night at Clemson (8-7, 0-4) and Sunday afternoon at No. 20 Georgia Tech (9-4, 1-3).

For now, Wells said, the Cavaliers are “just really embracing the underdog mentality … There’ll be a time and a place where maybe this program doesn’t get to do that anymore. But right now that’s what we get to do. So we’re trying to stay emotionally stable here, be excited, and enjoy the momentum, but also know we have a lot of work to do.”

Wells is excited about the recruiting classes that will join the program in 2025 and ’26, but she’s focused on the present. She wants to “take advantage of this amazing group of seniors that I get for just a few more months. I’m trying not to count down the days, because they really mean a lot,” Wells said.

“I couldn’t have scripted a better senior year for these guys, and I’m really excited for them. But this is the beginning. We talked about that in the locker room … This is not the end of our story. This is the beginning. We got some work left to do.”

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