Whose Starting Line-Up is It Anyway?
Laying out the roster and predicting the starters for the fall 2025 edition of Texas volleyball
Folks, we’re almost in full-fledged offseason now. Texas softball and baseball are still alive in their respective postseasons (did softball beat Florida yesterday, future me?). Over the next month, we’ll be up to our necks in offseason. The internet will be a wasteland of articles and discussion board topics like “If your head coach was a type of cheese, what would they be?” We’ll know all too well that Sark is a mango-ginger white stilton while Jerritt is a Pyengana cheddar. If you don’t see those obvious connections, then I can’t help you understand (mostly because I don’t understand it either).
However, two lovely and reasonable authors of a Texas volleyball blog such as Brittany and myself must come prepared with a plan to survive the offseason. It’s a fair expectation for any audience to have of its preferred content creator(s). The good news is we definitely do! Or kinda do? Fine. Let’s say we have concepts of a plan.
The idea is heavily dependent on the fall volleyball schedule getting announced sometime very soon, otherwise this will all get a wee bit messy. It’s really hard for us to write articles previewing our opponents when we don’t yet know who those opponents are in full yet. Running through the full SEC and talking about those teams individually is easy enough (famous last words), but my dumb brain would prefer we do it in schedule order. At time of writing, we know that Creighton, Wisconsin, Louisville, and Stanford are on the non-conference schedule to open the season, and Baylor has Texas listed for a Friday night match-up in Austin in September to boot. Jerritt, please release the schedule. My sanity will thank you.
Thankfully, we have a bit of runway left before Brittany and I have to start talking about silly topics like which Disney movie each Texas player would best fit into and why. This article, for instance, will reset the stage for the roster now that we’ve spent two articles discussing ladies leaving and ladies joining the program, respectively. What do each of the position rooms look like? Who are our starters? Where are the battles going to be for playing time as we head into the fall?
Small but Mighty
I talked to a friend of mine who played plenty of backrow and libero in her high school volleyball days. She hates the term “littles” when talking about backrow players. The subtitle of this section probably won’t win me any brownie points by leaning even further into the “you’re short” imagery, especially considering all the ladies on the roster are taller than the average American woman. But I digress. Let’s start in the back because I think libero will be one of the less cloudy roles on this team going into the season.
Sr Emma Halter
Jr Ramsey Gary
Jr Anja Kujundzic
So Reese Emerick
Fr Callie Krueger
First question is obvious here. Did you or did you not pronounce Anja’s last name the same way as you did in my last article (twice!)? Still no sign on the Texas sports website of a pronunciation guide here. Anywho…
It feels like just yesterday that a baby Emma Halter was holding it down in the middle alongside do-everything libero Zoe Fleck and winning a national championship with Texas in 2022. She took it a step further and anchored the defense in 2023 en route to the back-to-back title as the libero following Fleck’s graduation. She has been a steady and more-than-reliable player since stepping foot on campus. At this point, all that’s left to be said about Emma is that she has not been given the flowers she deserves from the national and conference media. But no matter. She deserves to be the starting libero for the 2025 Texas Longhorns once more and is deserving of that even without going down a Mack Brown-esque rabbit hole about “bleeding for the program” and other psycho-babble buzzwords. Bonafide killer.
And that’s not to discount the quality of players Jerritt brought in to assist Halter in responsibilities in the back. Ramsey Gary comes in from Indiana and should slot in nicely as the first defensive specialist (DS) off the bench (assuming Jerritt doesn’t get wild with the dual libero option) and play a ton. As second team All-Big Ten last season with the Hoosiers, I’d be shocked to learn that there’s a roster with more proven experience in the top two backrow spots in America.
The intrigue in this room has to come from the battle for that second DS spot. With Halter in the libero role and Keilei Akana in the primary DS position last year, Texas struggled to find a fit, attempting to plug Emerick and even setter Rella Binney into the spot without much success. That instability may have contributed to Texas’ inability to threepeat - 2022 saw Akana in that role and transfer Carissa Barnes held the spot down the following season. Getting a steady hand could be the key to how late in December Texas is playing in 2025. Will Jerritt take Kujundzic’s experience at VCU? Emerick’s familiarity and comfortability with the program? Or do we see the ascension of a new Emma Halter with a wickedly-talented true freshman in Callie Krueger getting a ton of trust defensively?
QB1
Texas missed Asjia O’Neal a ton in 2024. I don’t think too many people would argue that. Where I’m sure the real confusion lies is in why I’m invoking her name in a section that is titled “QB1”, indicating that I’m getting ready to talk about the options at setter. It’s because Texas missed more than Asjia’s technical ability or general experience - Texas desperately lacked her energy. While I wouldn’t describe the team as “quiet” last year, Asjia carried herself with a fiery intensity that I would argue was infectious with her teammates. The closest woman on the roster to that attitude last year was Ella Swindle, and the disastrous experiment with the 6-2 meant she spent most of the season on the bench. Not that you can’t be a vocal leader from the backup role, but it’s not the same as the in-your-face-screaming-hyping-you-up-because-that-kill-was-badass-holy-shit approach that you would’ve seen Ella bringing after every point were she on the floor. Sometimes there’s more to the game than technical prowess, and encouraging the setter (often referred to as the quarterback of the offense in volleyball) to be that fiery, vocal leader could pay dividends in the rest of the team outside of simply keeping the offense in rhythm.
Jr Ella Swindle
So Rella Binney
Another clean cut starter to my eye. Ella Swindle gets rewarded for not taking her ball and going home despite the adversity she faced last season. Fully healthy, fully healed. Legacy year for Ella incoming. Let’s hope Rella Binney coming into games is just to give Ella a breather when she’s winded from kicking too much ass.
Thinking Outside the Box
If you don’t mind, I’m going to go ahead and combine both outside hitters (OH) on the left and right side into a single section because that’s just how the cookie has crumbled for us today. We discussed that both Madisen Skinner and Jenna Wenaas are out of eligibility, so that means we’ve got two big OH spots to fill. Reagan Rutherford is also gone, so the right side (AKA opposite or OPP) is also there for the taking. There’s ladies on the roster with depth experience, a talented transfer, and a bucket-full of wickedly talented freshmen that will be vying for these spots.
rSr Whitney Lauenstein
Sr Devin Kahahawai
rJr Kenna Miller
Jr Torrey Stafford
Fr Addy Gaido
Fr Macaria Spears
Fr Abby Vander Wal
I don’t feel like it’s a hot take to say that Torrey Stafford didn’t leave Pittsburgh to come ride pine in Austin. She seems to be the obvious candidate on this team to play a full six rotations and not get substituted off the floor. She was a better defensive player than Madi Skinner was and not wildly far behind Jenna Wenaas, so if she can also find her groove on the offensive side and be more like Madi than Jenna, the first OH spot is filled.
At that point, God help you if you can figure out how to handle this crowded room. We have one left side and one right side spot. Whitney has been rehabbing after joining the team before the 2024 season and looked exciting in limited action. Devin’s been waiting her turn very patiently. Kenna Miller…seems to be enjoying going to class and practice. All three freshmen are oozing talent. Who do you leave on the bench? Who swings from the right side instead? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? I imagine Jerritt knows the answers to all these questions and more, but I do not.
Side note: Devin Kahahawai has one of the most fascinating serves I’ve ever seen (keep in mind my relative newness to volleyball here before we start clowning too much). Feels like a rattlesnake uncoiling and striking with how she tosses and attacks the ball. Watch her a few times again and tell me I’m wrong. Worth playing her a lot just for this bullet point.
Block Party
Mari announced her intent to transfer to UCLA, so there goes my whole theory last article about being home sick and maybe heading closer to South Carolina. Raises a number of questions, to say the least. If you want to take the orange copium here, it’s this: Ayden Ames took a massive leap forward in the spring and pushed Mari out because she got leapfrogged. No analysis here for that, merely vibes and wishcasting. I hope it’s true. I did make the bold claim in one of my first articles last year that Ames was the best freshman middle to ever come through Texas. Maybe that’s paying off in spades after a full year in the 512? Call me Hornstradamus if it comes to pass.
rSo Nya Bunton
So Ayden Ames
Fr Taylor Harvey
There’s a reason that Jerritt likes to typically redshirt his freshman middles. The position is far from easy. The change in the pace of play from high school to college is crazy. Ayden struggling in spurts and shining in others is more than fair to expect from a true freshman that’s getting baptized by fire in the most competitive gym in the country. In football, the most significant leap a player will see in their game is in the offseason between their first and second years starting. That’s where Ayden Ames finds herself this year, and it’s why I’m expecting a monster breakout campaign for the true sophomore from Prosper. She made the All-Freshman Team in the SEC, so now it is time for her to take the next step and get into the All-Conference discussions. Drink the Kool-Aid with me on this one. It literally cannot backfire on us.
Typically there are two middle blockers (MB) who get a heavy amount of play in volleyball. If Ames is the MB1, then Bunton and Harvey are battling for MB2. If Bunton is finally healthy, it feels like a safe assumption that she ends up on the floor plenty this year. Harvey is also a massive talent and may work her way into more play time as the season wears on, but not being in Austin for the spring schedule will hurt her here.
Line Us Up, Coach
I hope it’s clearly conveyed at this point that the intrigue for the starting lineup on the team figures to be in the DS and OH2/OPP battles. Should make it a bit of a guessing game in May for what the starting lineup will workout to be, especially if Jerritt magically acquires a grad transfer middle blocker after I call my shot here. Let’s just grip it and rip it and see what our hit rate ends up being come the season opener, shall we?
S Ella Swindle
OH1 Torrey Stafford
OH2 Whitney Lauenstein
OPP Devin Kahahawai
MB1 Ayden Ames
MB2 Nya Bunton
L Emma Halter
We’ll revisit this article at the start and end of the season when discussing how matches went so we can see if I nailed it or not. In the meantime, the offseason speculation content rolls on! Opponent previews and schedule lookaheads are in our future. Let us know if there’s anything else you’d like to see over the summer!
Hook ‘em!