The Western Athletic Conference released the 2025 volleyball preseason poll and I have a suspicion that the UT Arlington Mavericks will feel a little disrespected. The defending champs were picked second by the conference's coaches.
The Utah Valley Wolverines were tagged as the preseason favorites, garnering five of the seven coaches first-place votes and a total of 34 points. UTA garnered one and the Utah Tech Trailblazers grabbed the final first-place vote. The Mavs edged the Blazers in total points, 29 to 25.
California Baptist was fourth (21), Abilene Christian (17), Tarleton State (12) and Southern Utah (9) round out the preseason poll.
While I don't have a high opinion of preseason accolades the Mavs landed a couple of players on the all-conference teams. Junior Libero Samantha Glenn earned preseason Libero of the Year. Glenn and Junior outside hitter Sophie Ocampo made the preseason all-conference teams.
Regular readers know my thoughts on preseason accolades and polls. Half the "first team" appeared on the post-season all-WAC last year in some form. The others are an educated guess. But who went 16-0 last year after getting picked second? Who won the Player of the Year after getting shunned in August?
Don't mistake where this squad is. UTA is a big question mark. You can't easily replace Player of the Year (Brianna Ford), Setter of the Year (Mollie Blank), a third all-WAC first teamer (Paige Reagor), Freshman of the Year (Sjakkie Donkers), Coach of the Year (J.T. Wenger) and another Graduate Student who received votes for the all-WAC team (Cansu Gunaydin). That alone is almost enough to be on the court in one moment.
That's not to say there isn't talent, but there's just too many unknowns. The expectations are probably higher because of the dominance of last year. Glenn improved as the year went on, even held the last several serves in the WAC championship match for the come-from-behind victory. I've been impressed for the last several years watching Ocampo, who has contributed as an underclassman.
There are nine new faces on the roster, out of a total 16 spots. Four are freshmen. Of the returnees, I'd expect seniors Ava Burroughs, a middle blocker, Jalie Tritt, an outside hitter, and junior Evyn Snook, also an outside hitter, to be a much bigger part of the team. Make no mistake, they can play.
But like with any volleyball team, the setter is so important, and it will be a new face there too. Last year, after Blank, there was one other setter on the roster, a freshman who transferred to a Division II school in her home state.
The candidates are juniors Taryn Doiron, a transfer from Dallas Eastfield College and Mira Ledermueller, a transfer from Syracuse who came to the United States from Endorf, Germany. Doiron was a first-team All-American for the non-scholarship division at the Junior College level. Her 11.32 assists per set is an outstanding number. Ledermueller started 21 matches as a freshman and 12 as a sophomore. She had 5.83 assists per set in her first year and 6.69 in her second, both good numbers.
And of course, the bigger question mark is the start of a new era, the Tania Schatow era at UTA. The first-year coach spent a year at Pacific last year, where her team played in the National Invitational Volleyball Championship. Prior to that, she was an assistant at Miami-Ohio, a generally good Mid-American Conference team. She played and was a volunteer assistant at Louisiana State University.
My knee jerk reaction was the second-place vote was a slap in the face, but clearly, there are question marks all over this team. In the end, second may be too high, low or on the money. It is hard to say.
What isn't hard to say is that the Mavs start their season at the Bradley Invitational Tournament on August 29th. They will open against the Quinnipiac Bobcats. Later the same day, they'll play the host Braves. The following Saturday, they'll close against the Western Illinois Leathernecks.
Quinnipiac was picked second in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference's preseason poll and has the preseason Player of the Year. Bradley's home, the Missouri Valley Conference hasn't published a preseason poll while Western Illinois is picked sixth in the Ohio Valley Conference.
The schedule isn't difficult, but is decent enough that many of the questions about this team will have answers by the time WAC play starts.
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