NAIT’s volleyball teams are trending in very different directions entering 2024/25. Last year, the men’s team ended a 47-year streak to win their first ACAC title since 1977 and first national title in program history. Meanwhile, the women’s team missed the playoffs for a fifth consecutive season—all Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) sports were cancelled in 2020/21—and they haven’t won a title since 2012/13.
However, the women’s program may be entering a new era.
Hiring former Olympian Erminia Russo Thorpe as the team’s Head Coach in the summer of 2021 has drastically changed the Ook’s trajectory; the program is now finally past the “ground zero” stage from when Russo Thrope started.
“From when I took over three years ago … it’s been a rebuilding process. And it’s really a rebuild from ‘ground zero.’ And so that’s why I feel really good about last year,” Russo Thorpe said. “We have steadily improved, not by a ton, but I think we may be at the point now that we’re again cautiously optimistic about where we sit in the league.”
Players who remain from Russo Thorpe’s first year of coaching—Jessica Zlinksi and Anna Atcheynum—are now in their fourth and fifth years and are crucial parts of the team’s lineup. The players from her first and second recruiting classes are also in their second and third years. With more players becoming familiar with the team’s system and the coach’s recruiting classes starting to adapt to the collegiate game, the Ooks roster is in great shape for 2024/25.
A closer look at the roster
There are 11 returning players this year, giving the Ooks some continuity heading into 2024/25. With only five new recruits, a more reasonable amount than last year’s nine, the challenge of finding a program only signed five new recruits this offseason.
With 11 returning players, the Ooks roster will maintain some continuity through 2024/25. The success of retaining talent from last season, when they originally had nine new faces, makes this year’s challenge of finding a balanced lineup that much easier.
Three players made a name for themselves in 2023-24: now third-year outside hitter Charlotte Vandenelzen and second-year setters Lexi Gedny and Egypt Trydal.
Vandenelzen was a force on offence for the blue and gold. She recorded a team-leading 136 kills—nine more than the team’s second-highest kills leader, Anna Atcheynum—and finished 13th in the North Division.
Lexi Gedny and Egypt Trydal were also critical to the Ooks’ offence. The duo led the team in assists with 246 and 219, finishing seventh and eighth in the division.
The trio will be expected to maintain their production from last season for the Ooks’ offence to thrive this season. If all goes right, Russo Thorpe believes that with this lineup, the Ooks are on their way to making it further than they have in years.
“I think it [playoffs] is a possibility. There’s no question,” she said. “We play 19 games; I want us to win ten of those 19. Can we? I think we can. But you know, I like to say we like to take it one match at a time.”
“Our goal is obviously to qualify for playoffs; that’s a no-brainer. But for me, if we can just continue to improve steadily at each match … we could do that and break .500.”
A bright future ahead
Although the program still boasts a very young roster, Russo Thorpe is confident that the players she has recruited can lift the team to the levels of success it has not seen since the early 2010s.
“I think that we have the players right now [to win a championship]. But, it’s about individual performance and finding the right six or seven players that have chemistry as well,” she said. “If you look at our lineup, we’re going to have some youth, and we’re going to have some veterans. So it’s going to be a combination of how do the younger ones respond to playing at a higher level and whether or not the veteran players can handle more responsibility.”
As any coach does, Russo Thorpe has big plans for the program. “Five years down the road, I hope that people will be like, not only is NAIT always in the top four or five [of the division].” She’s also focused on making the women’s volleyball program a destination for talented players, like NAIT has seen happen with the men’s team, when “players realized it’s a good program.”
So, while the men’s and women’s teams start the season in two different spots, the women’s program is poised to begin the next chapter of its legacy—one it hopes will end similarly to what the men’s team has experienced.
The road to that point will not be easy, but this is what the team has been building towards over the past three seasons: the opportunity to take the next step and contend for a playoff spot.
Nineteen games stand between them and achieving that goal. With a talented lineup filled with young stars and trusted veterans, the Ooks women’s team is in a great position to raise the bar in 2024/25 and beyond.
