Even coming off the most successful three-year run in school history, Arizona State volleyball remains hungry and determined to advance beyond the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16.
“We’re plenty motivated,” coach JJ Van Niel says. “Last year was great but we had a chance to move on somewhere we hadn’t and didn’t pull it off. Now we’ve got that experience. We can also not get there. All we can control is keep the standards high, compete really hard and see how it all shakes out.”
ASU is a cumulative 86-14 under Van Niel, second highest winning percentage (.860) by any Sun Devil coach over the first three seasons behind football’s Dan Devine (.887 from 1955-57). Volleyball won the Big 12 in 2024 and 2025 and is favored to do so again.
Texas won seven straight Big 12 titles from 2017-23 (tying with Baylor in 2019) before moving to the SEC.
Fittingly, No. 12-ranked ASU opens its season on Saturday against No. 2 Texas in a nationally televised Jeep AVCA First Serve match in Milwaukee. The Sun Devils then play No. 14 Minnesota and No. 20 USC on Aug. 28-29 in Sioux Falls, S.D.
“I figured let’s go out and get in a heavyweight boxing match right out of the gate,” says Van Niel, similar to last season when ASU split early with national power Penn State and Pitt. “It’s getting the experience of playing in front of big crowds, playing big matches. When we go to the (NCAA) tournament, it’s the same thing.”
The Sun Devils’ 2025 season ended in the NCAA Sweet 16 with a loss to Creighton. They exited at the same level to Stanford in 2023 and were eliminated in the second round by Texas A&M in 2024. All were 3-1 defeats.
“We’ve got to be a little bit better for the chaos of the tournament,” Van Niel says. ASU has never reached the NCAA quarterfinals in its 52-season history.
To that end, ASU incoming transfers include outside hitter Una Vajagic and middle blocker Tosia Serafinowska from Wisconsin, which reached the 2025 NCAA semifinals. Also OH Aniya Clinton and MB Aurora Papac, who earned All-Big 12 honors last season for Kansas State and Kansas.
They join returning starters Noemie Glover and Kiylah Presley, both right-side hitters, libero Faith Frame and MB Ella Lomigora. Glover was All-America first team in 2025 and Big 12 Player of the Year, which she is preseason favorite to win again.
In addition to Glover, Vajagic and Clinton are on the All-Big preseason team. ASU’s outside hitter contenders also include Maeva Schalk of France, who sat out as a freshman in 2025 due to injury.
ASU has its largest freshman class (five) under Van Niel including Ella Mottola and Ziva Labinjan, both in contention at setter, and MB Ella Hope.
The Sun Devils have won big with different setters every season under Van Niel and will be new at that position again, whether in a 5-1 or 6-2 or some combination of those systems like last season.
The other incoming setter is senior Isabella Costantini, a transfer from Texas Rio Grande Valley.
“They’re battling it out,” Van Niel says of the setters. “They’re all competing really hard. There’s going to be some tough decisions that we’ve got to make.”
With the new five-year eligibility rule for incoming freshmen, finding the correct recruiting balance with portal transfers becomes even more complex.
ASU has two known high school commitments in the 2027 class and one in 2028.
The bottom line for Van Niel is to find the player mix that will elevate the Sun Devils closer to a national championship that once seemed unattainable.
“Stacking freshman classes is our goal,” says Van Niel, with a qualifier he learned from Beth Launiere when serving as her assistant at Utah in 2015-16.
“She would always talk about seniors matter. When you do get kids that have been to places you’re trying to go, that helps because they’ve got that experience. College volleyball is a big slap in the face for most freshmen. They go through a lot of ups and downs. So when you have people that have been through it, it helps.”
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