New Horns on the Block
Lyte Funky Ones (LFO) reporting that they'll have a bunch of hits
Remember in my last article when we all had a hearty chuckle about the state of college athletics and the impact of the transfer portal on it? I said something to the effect of there being a high chance that a player you love and think is going to be a star not even being on campus next season. Well, right as I went to hit the button and post that article on Substack, rumblings came out of the woodwork that redshirt junior middle blocker Marianna Singletary was putting her name in the transfer portal. Life imitating art or something, right?
Not long after those rumors came out, Mari confirmed it on Instagram with a post thanking the coaching staff and Longhorn fans for their support and her experience on campus. One can only speculate what happened between the end of Texas’ season in December and today that led us to this point. Mari won SEC Player of the Week and Defensive Player of the Week numerous times in her first year as a regular contributor, ultimately being voted to the All-SEC First Team alongside her teammate, Madisen Skinner. Even while I lamented the inconsistencies both Mari and fellow middle blocker Ayden Ames showed while trying to replace the experience of Asjia O’Neal and Bella Bergmark, I certainly didn’t hope to see either one depart the Texas gym.
The closest I’ll come to real speculation is this: Singletary hails from South Carolina. Could simply be a desire to be closer to home for some reason, be it homesickness or otherwise. That feels like it is always the risk with out-of-state players, though being out-of-state is much more common in volleyball recruiting than football. Of the 16 other players on the Texas volleyball roster for the spring, only five came from Texas high schools.
With this brief mourning period behind us, let’s look ahead to the new faces in Austin and accept now that head coach Jerritt Elliott will reel another one or two ladies out of the portal right after this article goes live!
Bright-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed
Jerritt once again hauled in an absolutely absurd recruiting class. Recruiting websites are of course inconsistent, but if you want to trust VB Adrenaline (and you should for the sake of what I’m about to tell you), Texas had the #1 recruiting class for 2025. VB Adrenaline (VBA) also posts a “Super 30” that ranks the 30 best high school players in the country. Texas took five women in this recruiting class, and four were ranked #17 or better on VBA’s Super 30 list. In case that doesn’t fire you up enough, try this on for size: three Texas signees were in the top five on VBA’s rankings. Still unimpressed? The top two on the list are both Texas recruits AND already on campus.
OH Addy Gaido
MB Taylor Harvey (5)
L/DS Callie Krueger (17)
OH Macaria Spears (1)
OH Abby Vander Wal (2)
Not to sell Addy Gaido short here by not having her in VBA’s Super 30, several other recruiting websites including VBallRecruiter.com list her as a 5* as well. Basically, this 2025 signing class is L-O-A-D-E-D loaded. Gaido was the star at Georgetown HS just up the road from Austin and could be in line to get some looks at opposite, a position she played much of in high school. Better yet, she is the child of Aggies, so it is always nice to see a family start turning towards the burnt orange light.
The only recruit on this list who hasn’t made it to campus yet is Taylor Harvey out of Bountiful HS in Utah. She will be joining in time for the fall semester. Given the situation with Marianna Singletary, this is a major bummer because she likely would be challenging for playing time if she was able to participate in the spring practice and scrimmage schedule with Texas. Harvey has played with Team USA on the U19 and U21 teams and was named Ms. Volleyball for the state of Utah by Deseret News. She is also a cousin of NBA player Aaron Gordon, and her sister Jordyn plays volleyball for the Stanford Cardinal. Safe to say that this is not a family that lacks raw athleticism, genetically-speaking.
Callie Krueger is the lone backrow player in the class for Texas, and she is also a local product out of Dripping Springs. Both of her parents were athletes at Texas A&M Commerce, but her grandfather was a basketball player at UT. You are welcome to be dazzled by the accolades she racked up in high school on her bio on the Texas sports website. Among those are numerous All-District team selections dating back to her freshman year, defensive MVP awards aplenty for a variety of tournaments, and she’s been a fixture in USA Volleyball’s national team development program. After the departure of Keonilei Akana and Brennan Ramierez from last season’s Longhorns, the door is wide open for Krueger to claim some playing time at defensive specialist this fall.
For once in our lives, we can all say an honest, completely unironic “thank you” to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Were it not for the decision to select LSU defensive end Marcus Spears in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft, it is highly likely that Macaria Spears does not grow up in Frisco, TX and fall in love with the University of Texas. Much like Callie Kruger, I’ll let you bask in the glory of her list of high school accolades on her Texas sports bio. Through multiple seasons of her high school career, Spears was named an All-American (not a typo where I meant All-District or All-State or any other All-anything teams). Spears will be a weapon sooner rather than later in Austin (assuming she doesn’t break all our hearts and portal out unexpectedly).
And finally we come to Abby Vander Wal, a player who is only last on this list because someone had to be, and alphabetical order by last name seemed to be the safest way to not impose some personal bias on the conversation. AVW (as she has already been known by plenty of folks who would know) is similarly drowning in award after award in high school. Jerritt continues to collect state Gatorade Player of the Year winners, adding Illinois to the tally thanks to her. I don’t know specifically which country a name like “Vander Wal” would indicate ancestry from, but it sounds just viking enough for me to assume the blood of Leif Erikson courses through her veins. Between AVW and Macaria Spears, someone is going to need to play opposite just so both can be on the floor murderizing the ball every minute of every set of every match of every season.
Jerritt, I do believe the kids would say that you cooked with this recruiting class. Now comes the even tougher task of keeping them on campus for at least the next four years.
The Transfer Portal Giveth
As my last article and intro to this article illustrated, the transfer portal took a lot of talent out of the Texas gym and redistributed it all over the country. Thankfully, the volleyball program and Texas One Fund made sure to get their pound of flesh out of the portal as well. While there have now been six transfers out of Austin, the Texas coaching staff was able to piece together eight total replacements in the five high school recruits named above as well as three critical transfers in.
L Jr Ramsey Gary (Indiana)
L Jr Anja Kujundzic (VCU)
OH Jr Torrey Stafford (Pitt)
Ramsey Gary represents the newest iteration of a transfer who joins the Longhorns after playing in Gregory Gym for a visiting team; the Hoosiers were swept off the floor for the Texas home opener last September. Gary was a Second Team All-B1G selection during her two years in Bloomington where she played as Indiana’s libero. Her addition to the Texas roster was interesting due to the fact that the Longhorns already have an entrenched starter at libero in senior Emma Halter. Worst case scenario, Texas will have two bonafide killers in the back row between Halter and Gary. The best news out of all of this is that Gary being a junior leaves her an additional year of eligibility after Halter graduates. One year of DS followed by a year at L for Gary should cover Texas nicely in time for Callie Krueger or Reese Emerick to wear the black jersey starting in 2027. Of course, the NCAA did change the rules in 2024 to allow for teams to dress two liberos. Chef Jerritt could be cooking something in the kitchens of Gregory Gym on that front…
At time of writing, the Texas volleyball roster page online does not provide a pronunciation guide for Anja Kujundzic’s name. That’s a brutal move for a fanbase that will certainly be willing to embrace the Serbian’s relocation from Richmond, VA to Austin, TX (much like Shaka Smart before her, only with far more hair). Anja led the Rams in digs and was second on the team in service aces last season. She could figure to slot into the third back row role to solidify a defensive unit that was streaky at times in 2024. If she’s able to be this year’s iteration of Carissa Barnes, things will be looking up. However, if Krueger or Emerick proves to be ready for the task, Kujundzic (did you pronounce it in your head the same way you did in the first sentence?) could also play a lethal role as a serving specialist.
The big prize for the Longhorns coming out of the portal is absolutely Torrey Stafford. With so much of the Pitt offense focused on feeding the right side and AVCA National Player of the Year Olivia Babcock last season, Stafford chose to look for greener pastures. The departure of so many pin hitters from last season’s Texas team (six in total between graduation and the portal) provides her with an opportunity to step right into a featured role in the Longhorn offense for 2025. Much like the two littles, Stafford is also only a junior and therefore figures to be a two year starter in burnt orange. She actually hit at a higher success rate than Babcock did in Pittsburgh last season. If she slots in as quickly as Texas fans are hoping, Torrey Stafford will join the ranks of Logan Eggleston and Madi Skinner in developing Texas’ reputation for premiere left pin play.
With the opening of the spring transfer window, it’s entirely possible, if not outright likely, that there ends up being an addition to the Texas roster within moments of my sharing this post with the world. If that happens, we will of course address it in due time.
In a future article, we’ll go over where this leaves the roster overall and start baselessly speculating what it means for a possible starting line-up in the fall. The sooner we start doing that, the sooner Jerritt makes a move that completely ruins our projections, so it’s really in the best interests of the offseason that we get to that tout de suite. We’ll also start previewing the SEC for 2025 in the lead up to Texas unveiling the full fall schedule for the team. Not quite sure exactly how we’ll do that (one team per article or should we combine them?), but we’ll start doing that and see where we end up.
Hook ‘em!