By River Mitchell
@rivermitchell27
Not having a losing season since 2006, the Springfield College men’s volleyball team looks to have yet another strong campaign Building off of a strong 2024 campaign where the team finished 19-7 before falling to No. 6 ranked Juniata College in five sets in the first round of the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament, the program looks to continue its long lived dominance.
Now, with the season only about a month away, head coach Charlie Sullivan and the Pride play their first game of the regular season against Concordia University Irvine on Jan. 17.
“Really excited,” Sullivan said. “Got a ton of new guys in and some returners with a lot of experience. I think the group is just excited because they’re all good guys and I think we have a clear vision of what we need to do this year.”
Coach Sullivan has preached to his players over the years to play championship level volleyball day in and day out. While winning the Division III National Championship is great – and is something Sullivan has experience with winning 11 titles in his 26 years as head coach at Springfield – Sullivan and the team are focusing on controlling the controllables and aiming to focus on the level of play over the results.
However, the team is still motivated to win it all, as they understand the team they have is capable of going all the way, despite last winning it all in 2018.
“It’s hard to put results into context, because there’s so many things that happen before the season,” said junior setter Dylan Mulvaney. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say it wouldn’t be a disappointment if we didn’t win the National Championship this year.”
“We want to win a National Championship,” said senior middle blocker Chris Rouleau. “It’s come to the point where we’re pretty sick of that first round exit two years in a row, losing in the fifth set. We want this to be the year for sure. We have high expectations for that.”
The team fielded this year is certainly capable of this, too.
Bringing back a roster that looks very similar to last year outside of losing seniors Rami Moursi and Paolo Mondini, the team also has an abundance of first-year students, with 11 total new faces, including two transfers.
“There’s a lot of them,” Mulvaney said. “They’re a fun group. We got two kids from Florida who we love and a good libero from St. Louis. All of them I think will make an impact, and already have made an impact in our gym just from a competition standpoint.”
Everyone on the team has been working hard in practice before their upcoming trip to California. For Rouleau and the other middle blockers, they’ve been mainly working on blocking, putting an emphasis on getting blocks when the other team gets out of transition. They’ve also been working on attacking, which could always improve. For Mulvaney and the setters, while it hasn’t been anything specific, it’s been a lot of getting the first years acclimated to the system, with also a little bit of footwork mixed in as well.
After the team comes back from California, the Pride have their first five games on the road before coming back to Blake Arena on Feb. 6.
“I can’t wait,” Rouleau said. “As a senior especially, it’s one last ride.”
Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics