Illinois volleyball trying to build off rough 2025 season – The News-Gazette

CHAMPAIGN — The final month of the 2025 season was a disaster for Illinois.

A 1-11 finish to a 13-16 season that kept the Illini out of the NCAA tournament for the fourth time in six years.

Illinois was swept seven times in those dozen matches, including six losses to ranked teams. The remaining five matches included a mid-November win against Washington at Huff Hall — the only bright spot — and four- and five-set losses that showed coach Chris Tamas his team was on the verge of being where it needed to be competitively in the Big Ten.

“It eats at my soul,” Tamas said Monday at Big Ten media day in Chicago. “Every day when we’re at the basic drills that’s the stuff we’ve got to harp on and make sure we’re not losing a point because we’re not turning over every stone to figure out how to score those points.

“As a collective, we’ve got to figure it out a little bit better. It’s on me, obviously, to help them do that. … It was so close, but as you know, close only counts in a few things and winning volleyball games isn’t one of them.”

A couple late-season injuries didn’t help Illinois’ cause at the end of its 2025 campaign. Neither did a generally inexperienced lineup. Averie Hernandez, Kayla Burbage and Ashlyn Philpot were the only rotation regulars in Champaign from a season prior.

Everyone else was new. That included Florida State transfer Kenna Phelan at setter, whose primary offensive weapons were in the same boat. That included a finally fully healthy Taylor de Boer and freshman Alyssa Aguayo at outside hitter and Texas transfer Auburn Tomkinson at opposite.

“A lot of it was just figuring out how to score those couple extra points,” Tamas said. “If you look at our set scores, some of the battles we had, we were real close in a lot of sets. Those sets can turn matches and change your trajectory.

“We had a lot of really tough-fought battles. A lot of it was just some of the simple things. Can we make that one more serve? Could we keep that one more service run, make a better second contact?”

Tamas didn’t reinvent the wheel heading into his 10th season as Illinois coach fresh off a two-year contract extension set to keep him in Champaign at least through the 2028 season. He considered wholesale changes after a struggle-filled season to be an overreaction.

Tamas addressed last season’s shortcomings with his team heading into their spring practice schedule. Then the focus shifted to moving past them and honing in on the small details that could pay off this fall.

“We came off a great spring and kept the energy going in the summer,” senior backup setter, part-time libero and serving specialist Vivian Campbell said. “As we enter this preseason, to really fine tune before the season starts, I think it’s just staying competitive and really giving every day and every practice the same attention we do when we get on the court.”

Campbell is one of 11 Illinois players that got on the court last fall returning this season. Six newcomers help round out the roster, with Tennessee transfer Paityn Chapman the biggest offseason addition to replace Tomkinson, who left Champaign for UC Santa Barbara.

The Illini also bolstered its defense by adding Ukrainian import Kristina Starostenko via two seasons as a professional in France and Northern Iowa transfer Lindsay Oldendorf at middle blocker. San Jose State transfer Talita Goncalves provides another libero/defensive specialist option.

“We had a lot of newcomers and people that had never played in the Big Ten (last season) — myself included,” Phelan said. “So, I think figuring each other out throughout the season and getting to work with them all spring has been awesome.

“We have such a deep team this year, especially in the attacking side. We have a couple freshmen (outside hitters Maya Harris and Madi Miles) that came in and have been lights out over the summer. It’s been fun just trying to figure each other out, figure out how all the components go together, who needs what.”

That depth could make Tamas’ job tricky this month. It’s on him to figure out the best lineup, with Illinois set to play an exhibition against Bradley on Aug. 16 at Huff Hall before opening the season at home Aug. 28 against Cincinnati.

“It’s very competitive in the gym right now,” the Illinois coach said. “You’re trying to find the best (players) you can find. It used to be a lot more planned out in terms of, ‘OK, we have these spots to fill and this is how we’re going to fill them.’ We used to recruit eighth grades.

“Now, you can turn over rosters a little bit quicker. Whenever you have some spaces that are open, you try to fill them the best you can. I think you’re going to see a lot of firepower coming this year that maybe we haven’t had in the few years past.”