UNIVERSITY CENTER, Mich. – The Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) announced the 2025 Volleyball Preseason Poll Tuesday (August 26) afternoon.
The Saginaw Valley State University volleyball program was picked ninth in the poll, earning 34 points. The Cardinals sit ahead of Lake Superior State (18) and Roosevelt (13), while Grand Valley State leads the conference with 98 points and eight first-place votes. Ferris State follows closely in second with 92 points and three first-place nods. Wayne State is third with 76, Northern Michigan fourth with 68, and Michigan Tech rounds out the top five with 67. Parkside (59), Davenport (42), and Purdue Northwest (38) place sixth through eighth respectively.
The Cardinals finished the 2024 season with a 6-21 record, including a 3-13 mark in GLIAC play. The result marked a one-win improvement in the first season under head coach Lana Rybkowski, who now enters her second year leading the program with her first full recruiting class in place.
SVSU returns several key contributors for 2025. Cola Sisk, now a junior, recorded the third-most kills on the team in 2024 and leads all returners in that category. Rachel Townsend, a redshirt-sophomore, averaged 1.65 kills per set and 3.00 digs per set last season. On the defensive side, senior Liz Bruschuk posted the second-most digs last year, the most among returning players. At setter, Ava Beard (junior) and Jackie Scheiber (sophomore) split duties in 2024. Scheiber finished with a team-high 463 assists, while Beard added 393 and posted the higher assist-per-set average at 8.93.
The Cardinals also added firepower through the transfer portal. Chloe Vanwinkle, a sophomore from Mott Community College, recorded 459 kills with a .177 hitting percentage as a freshman. She is joined by former Mott teammate Ruby Earl, a junior who averaged 3.43 kills per set with a .181 hitting percentage, along with 261 digs and 39 blocks across two seasons. Earl earned NJCAA First Team All-American honors and was named the MCCAA Eastern Conference Player of the Year in 2024.
Rybkowski enters her second season with momentum and a deeper roster, looking to build the Cardinals into a consistent contender in the GLIAC.
The Cardinals begin their 2025 campaign at the Warrior Invitational in Detroit on Saturday, August 30, followed by trips to the Walsh and Cedarville Invitationals. GLIAC play opens on the road at Wayne State on Friday, September 19 at 7:00 PM. SVSU's first home match comes against Northwood on Tuesday, September 23 at 7:00 PM, while their first GLIAC home contest follows two days later against Lake Superior State on Thursday, September 25 at 6:00 PM.
In total, SVSU will host nine home matches this fall at Hamilton Gymnasium, including Senior Day against Grand Valley State on Friday, November 7 at 6:00 PM and the final home match the next day versus Wayne State at 4:30 PM. The regular season concludes with a trip to the Upper Peninsula to face Northern Michigan on Saturday, November 15 at 3:00 PM.
