Hoos Making the Rounds on Grounds

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Under normal circumstances, Memorial Gymnasium would house the University of Virginia volleyball and wrestling programs. That historic building is closed for renovations, however, and won’t re-open until next year. And so head volleyball coach Shannon Wells and her team, out of necessity, have gotten creative.

Since the Mem Gym project displaced the Wahoos last winter, the coaching staff’s offices have been in the McCue Center, and the team has practiced at North Grounds Recreation Center. The Hoos used Slaughter Recreation Center for their camps this summer, and they’ll play their home matches this fall at the Aquatic & Fitness Center and John Paul Jones Arena.

The situation isn’t ideal for the Cavaliers, but they aren’t bemoaning their fate, Wells says. Practice starts Friday for UVA, which opens the season Aug. 29 against Georgetown in Washington, D.C.

“We just look at it as a great opportunity,” Wells said. “I think we’ve always had a blue-collar mindset, too, and so if we need the really nice gym and all the bells and whistles, then I think that we’re doing the wrong thing. I recruited kids who just want to be at UVA and want to win at a high level, and I don’t really think it matters the facility that you’re in.”

The Taraflex surface that covered the court at Mem Gym was moved to North Grounds, Wells said, and that will help her team.

“It’s the surface that they use in the Olympics, so it’s the best volleyball surface in the world,” Wells said. “For every two jumps, it really only counts as one, and [in addition to reducing] the load on your body, you’re also looking at floor burns and bruises. As much as we dive all over in our program, it just keeps our kids a lot healthier. We’re going through a lot less Band-Aids, a lot less bandages, so it’s been really nice to have that.”

When the Hoos first moved out of the Mem Gym, Wells acknowledged, “it was hard, because they were used to going there for the locker room and the gym and the coaches’ offices. And so there were a lot of organic collisions, and there was a really big adjustment just from a logistical standpoint: How do you get from class over to North Grounds? Where do you park? What does the locker room look like? Now, I think it’s just part of what we do.”

Right-side hitter Lauryn Bowie, a junior who was fourth on the team in kills last season, echoed Wells’ comments.

“I would say the first couple weeks were rough, because it was just getting all of our stuff transitioned over,” said Bowie, who committed to UVA not long after Wells was hired in 2021. “There were issues with the locker room, and anything that could have gone bad, went bad. It was a hot mess for a little bit, but now it’s smoothed over. It’s just as easy as can be now.

“We all love Mem, so it was kind of hard at first knowing that we won’t be able to play there, especially for the seniors. But now we’re seven months into the transition, and at this point, we know it’s still volleyball. We know how to train. The location doesn’t really matter. For us, it’s not an excuse to lose games. We know how to train whether we’re in Mem or in North Grounds, and we’re still gonna come out and compete and win games. So we got over it and got back to training.”

In 2023, in the first-ever volleyball match at JPJ, UVA rallied for a reverse sweep of Virginia Tech. The Cavaliers won at JPJ again last season, sweeping ACC foe Miami, and they’ll play multiple matches there this fall.

“Any time we get to play at JPJ, it’s such an honor,” Wells said. “It’s such a great facility and they do a really good job of having us there. It’s really exciting, and I think they’ll do a really good job of having us compete at the AFC too.”

Virginia, which is heading into its fifth season under Wells, finished 21-11 overall and 11-9 in ACC play last year. That marked the most victories overall for the Hoos since 2006 and their most conference wins since 2013. Not since 2014 had UVA finished above .500 in the ACC.

Among the players from that team who exhausted their eligibility were Abby Tadder, Brooklyn Borum, Milan Gomillion, Elayna Duprey, Heyli Velasquez and Ashley Le. But nine Cavaliers from 2024 are back—Bowie, Kate Dean, Becca Wight, Zoey Dood, Kadynce Boothe, Kate Johnson, Meredith Reeg, Teagan Hogan and Sarah Brodner—and four transfers have joined the program since the end of last season: Katie Barrier (Tennessee), Vivian Miller (Ole Miss), Hannah Scott (College of Charleston) and Jasmine Robinson (Virginia Tech).

The roster also includes three freshmen: Reagan Ennist, Marin Black and Caroline Lang, whose brother, Carter, plays for the UVA men’s basketball team.

Of her 16 players, Wells said, “This is an incredible group with the level of competition, the level of depth. It’s the most physical group that we’ve ever had, with how hard they hit the ball, how high they jump. It’s the most talented group that we’ve ever had. We look different. We’re playing a really good level of volleyball, but it’s also an untested group. And so when you graduate five athletes who were four-year starters—whether it was in our program or another program—it’s hard to make up for that experience.”

At the end of Virginia’s spring workouts, Wells said, “I told the team that I think we’ll hit our stride in October, and the work they do in the summer will determine if we hit our stride in September. And so we needed to have a big summer. We needed them to really commit to what they were doing in the gym and getting a lot better.”

UVA’s players made that commitment. They’ve been training in Charlottesville for most of the summer. Wells and her assistants weren’t allowed to work with the team, but the players trained and practiced on their own.

“I really like this group,” Wells said. “They’re super competitive, and super talented, and so I think we have a chance. For us it’ll be all about how we handle obstacles and how resilient, how tough we can be, because we just don’t have the experience.”

In voting among the players, Bowie, Dood and Johnson were named to summer leadership positions.

“We’re essentially summer captains,” Bowie said, “and we’re in charge of just kind of figuring out more of the logistics of things, like when are we going to lift, when are we going to condition, what times can we get in the gym, organizing stuff like that that would usually be organized by coaches or the [operations director].

“And then we have a pillar that everyone on our team is a leader, so it’s not only summer facilitators that run the practices. Everyone plans a drill, everyone runs practice at some point, just to make sure everyone’s on the same board together, working hard, and no one feels like there’s a hierarchy, almost. We truly believe that everyone is a leader on our team. So there are certain things that only some facilitators organize and are in charge of, but when it comes to volleyball everyone’s in charge of their own skill set and doing what they need to do to get better.”

Ennist, who’s from Clifton Park, N.Y., enrolled at UVA in January, as did Miller and Scott, and all three took part in spring practice. A 6-foot-3 outside hitter, Ennist is only 17, “so she’s still a baby,” Wells said, “but physically she doesn’t look that way. We see big things for her. I think that she has potential to be one of the best kids to ever come through this program.”

Wells’ staff has undergone major changes since the end of last season. Virginia has two new assistant coaches—Jake Hong and Tilbe Yaglioglu—and a new director of operations/technical coordinator, Ansley McClain. Returning from last season are assistant coach Travis Magorien and volunteer technical coordinator Walter Spurlock.

Hong had some familiarity with the UVA program when he arrived in January. He spent the past five seasons on the staff at Wake Forest.

“I think Jake has just been such an awesome addition to our team,” Bowie said. “He’s so knowledgeable, and it’s really cool playing under a coach that you’ve played against for two years now. It’s really interesting, because Jake has such a different perspective on the returners. Jake knows me and my skill set through and through, because he’s scouted me for the past two years. He came here and was like, ‘At Wake we did this against you, so try this.’ I thought that was just a super cool perspective, and a lot of players don’t get the opportunity in their career to understand yourself as a player from another coach’s point of view.”

Bowie said Hong will bring up times when the Demon Deacons blocked her at the net. “And I’ll be like, ‘Whatever, Jake, we still beat you, so it doesn’t matter,’ ” she said, laughing.

Yaglioglu, who played at JMU, came to Virginia from Robert Morris. She focuses on recruiting and has a flair for social media.

When assistant coaches Sarah Bullock and Trevor Kennan left UVA after last season, Wells asked herself what the program needed for the next few years.

“Obviously, college athletics is such a changing landscape,” Wells said. “And so when we really looked at it, I wanted to hire somebody that, one, could take the defensive side of the game while still overseeing recruiting, so that was Jake. But I understood that because he’s doing so much from the defensive side, he can’t do it by himself. And so we re-evaluated that third assistant position and made it more of a recruiting assistant, but Tilbe’s main job is to build our brand and build the content [on social media]. And so I went with somebody younger who understands it a lot more than me, and she’s killed it.”

Wells smiled. “If you’re not following us on UVA Volleyball [Instagram], then you’re missing out.”

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