Life is filled with rough patches. Anything from bad hair days, perfect storms or slow mornings. Sports have them too. These can last weeks, months or years sometimes. While UVU Volleyball’s isn’t quite as dramatic, they’re still facing a challenging stretch.
Moving to the Big West conference has brought UVU Athletics the challenge of facing new opponents. While the idea of new competition is intimidating to some, the volleyball team is excited by this new frontier.
During their practices, it’s all smiles and cheering. A whiffed serve means handshakes and a gym filled with encouragement. Training is rigorous. There’s a constant shift between drills, rapid fire serving, blocking practice and debrief sessions from the coaching staff.
But no amount of practice can prepare you for the game itself. While the UVU volleyball team came off a Western Athletic Conference championship win last season. The 2026 season’s starting record is 2-10
“We are really young so it’s getting everybody caught up to pace,” says senior Madi Standifird, “it’s a whole new team so it’s just figuring how everybody works and just putting it together as one.”
Standifird, who’s had a spectacular few games this season, set a personal best of 17 and then 22 kills in back-to-back days. Now injured, she’s itching to get back onto the court and continue playing. To her, this injured period isn’t something to give up over–she feels that everything happens for you, not to you.
This mindset is similarly shared across the team. Fellow senior Evalyn Medaris, who won the 2025 WAC setter of year explained that past awards and championships don’t matter, not in the long run anyways. She’s looking forward to the new competition. To be able to see how things play out is very exciting for her.
When watching them compete, that same encouragement and passion is put into play here. It’s hard to give up as a spectator. While playing the ranked neighborhood university Brigham Young University–which ended in a 3-0 sweep in favor of the Cougars–these women never stopped fighting. Which ended in an impressive third-set run, despite the loss.
"It’s a great experience, because these girls come in, and they’re so ready to play, and they’re just sponges," said Senior libero Lani Toutai, who recently hit 1,300 career digs, landing her in the Wolverine’s top ten of all time. "They just go and do their best. I love it."
With sports, the game is constantly shifting. Teams change, coaches adapt, strategies are built, teammate rhythm is set and opponents follow this too. But that’s part of the fun to these athletes. They really understand the game in the moment and that things can change on a dime.
They also really focus on the team mindset. Volleyball is about passing, it’s a volley. They’ve built not only on-court relationships, but off court too. Each of them consistently mentioned the importance of team and trust.
"I think just the team aspect is something I’ll take with me moving forward and just how important and critical it is to look at the person next to you or a friend or whatever and tell them: ‘Hey, I got your back, I got you.’ Because it really is a special experience, you don’t really get an environment like this again." Says Medaris.
As of this year, UVU volleyball hasn’t played any in-conference teams. That starts September 24th against UC Riverside, who are 4-7. Last year, the 2025 UVU volleyball team was 4-8 before moving to in-conference play, which culminated in the WAC championship win and a short stint in the NCAA tournament.
"This is definitely a step up from the WAC," said Medaris." And so playing in this high level, high competition conference is really just gonna push us to have to show up every single day, every single game. But it’s really exciting to see what will happen."
The coaching team is mostly the same, so there’s room for another run, but that isn’t all that matters: “This is such a small moment in time, but, it’s so big to us. This is our lives right now and so I think just being able to enjoy it and stay present and look around and appreciate everything that we’ve all worked for," said Toutai. "It’s made me appreciate it more and just have more fun and let loose.”
Sincerity is king on this team. So is confidence, and these athletes are full of it. Despite a grim start, they show no signs of relenting. The season has only just begun and there is plenty of time to make the changes necessary to repeat last year’s success. Medaris looks forward to this: “It’s gonna be tough California volleyball, which is very competitive, so we’re excited to play at that higher level and show them what Utah volleyball is about.”
These women have learned much from playing not only this sport but on this team. There’s much for them to take from the court and into the rest of their lives, but above all, they love playing. Each one incredibly humble about their personal experiences. There’s a magic at the core of this group, one that could easily fester in the new crew, and I look forward to watching that.
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