WSU volleyball seniors leave with lasting legacy

PULLMAN — The Washington State volleyball team was on the brink of defeat when senior Katy Ryan, playing for likely the final time at Bohler Gym, spoke up.

“Katy doesn’t speak up very much, but she got in the middle of that huddle (in the fourth set), WSU coach Korey Schroeder said. “And if Katy Ryan is talking, giving you feedback, you know that you’re going to be listening.”

The speech wasn’t enough to get the Cougars over the hump against Loyola Marymount during a senior day match Friday in Pullman, but it did see the team shrink the nine-point deficit to five.

WSU concluded its inaugural year in the West Coast Conference — and Schroeder’s first year at the helm — with a four-set loss to the Lions, the top team in the conference.

The Cougars (16-11, 11-7 WCC) had fallen behind by as many as nine points in Set 4. The match was basically over, but the Cougars were not playing like it.

Following Ryan’s address, Wazzu raddled off four straight points, benefiting from two errors by the Lions and a pair of Lucie Blažková service aces to delay defeat.

Cougars lose to class of the conference

The Cougars put together a dominating performance in Set 1, winning 25-20, before LMU took the remaining sets 25-18, 25-20, 25-17.

WSU hit .452 in Set 1 to LMU’s .370, before regressing to .118, .071 and -0.071 in Sets 2, 3 and 4, respectively.

Ryan led WSU with 14 kills, junior Taryn Vrieling recorded 12 digs, freshman Breccan Scheck posted eight blocks and graduate transfer Jaden Walz distributed 24 assists. Walz, Vrieling and Blazkova delivered two aces each.

With her family in the stands, LMU senior Sophia Meyers of Seattle’s Eastside Catholic High School led the Lions (24-5, 16-2) with 13 kills and 13 digs.

“We have a lot to give and it’s difficult that we just came together,” said Ryan, who hails from Lakeland High School in Rathdrum, Idaho. “I think if we would have had a lot more time that (we) could work things out, then we would have been an even better team.

“I’m so proud of my teammates. They all put their best foot forward and did all the hard work, and it turned out well.”

Ryan put together her best season with a career-high 367 kills (3.37 kills per set) as the feature hitter of the Cougars’ offensive attack.

Picked to finish sixth in the WCC in the preseason with a first-year coach and just five returners, WSU surpassed expectations with a fourth-place finish, which included a four-set win over second-place San Diego on Sept. 28.

WSU honors six seniors

Schroeder took the helm of a program that had made eight straight NCAA tournaments after former coach Jen Greeny left to lead West Virginia in the offseason.

The Cougars had a sizable senior class that graduated last year, including program legends Pia Timmer and Magda Jehlarova, the NCAA’s all-time blocks leader.

Others who could have returned chose to transfer while five Cougs, including seniors Ryan, Weronika Wojdyla and Logann Golden chose to return.

“Katy, Logan and Weronika, I can’t say thank you enough to those three for choosing to come back and be with Washington State volleyball for their last year,” Schroeder said. “None of them had to do that. And so for them to be here and be leading this program (was big), and they will continue to be members of this program going forward. I expect that we’ll see those faces back here quite a bit.”

WSU recognized six seniors, three who decided to stay during the coaching change and three who transferred to WSU this year.

WSU recognized Ryan, fifth-year Golden and sixth-year Wojdyla along with graduate transfers Jade Warren, Walz and Sage Brustad.

“Korey did a really good job of finding people with amazing hearts, and I think that that’s something that I value above anything,” Ryan said. “And so I just, you know, modeled that, and everyone else felt the same way, and just went with it.”

Brustad said that from the minute she got to WSU, Ryan welcomed her.

“Katy was the first person I leaned on,” Brustad said. “And, you know, she kind of made me her big sister really fast. But playing with Katy has just been everything. I mean, I look up to her in so many ways. She’s a phenomenal athlete, even better person.”

Ryan said she will finish school at WSU in the spring and wants to play pro volleyball.

The senior said she is willing to play overseas and has texted her former teammates about the process, including Jehlarova, who Ryan invited to join her family on the Palouse for Thanksgiving. Jehlarova, who is a Pro Volleyball Federation player for the Atlanta Vibe, attended both Wednesday against San Francisco and Friday’s match and celebrated Ryan and Wojdyla, who she played with for all five years of her Cougar career.

Future of Cougar volleyball

While WSU will not qualify for the NCAA Tournament for what would have been a ninth straight year, the team may earn an at-large bid to the National Invitational Volleyball Championship.

There is also a chance that the Cougars could host an NIVC match at Bohler Gym. The team will learn its postseason fate on Sunday when the bracket is announced.

Ryan said that WSU athletic director Anne McCoy called her in December following Greeny’s departure and asked how she would feel about the school hiring Schroeder.

“I respected (McCoy) for as long as I’ve known her,” Ryan said. “So just the knowing ... she respected what I had to say, too, was really cool.”

Schroeder said that before the season started, he went on a camping trip and wrote a journal entry that read “Have no expectations.”

The team did not have enough athletes to run normal head-to-head practices or scrimmages until the summer but entered the season knowing that if they could compete toward the top of the WCC, they would give themselves a chance.

“I do wish, you know, for our seniors and everybody that had chosen to come into this program, we could have given them an NCAA Tournament,” Schroeder said. “There’s certainly things. I look back on you know, I could have done better in Year 1, but overall, incredibly proud of this team and our staff.”

Taylor can be reached at 208-848-2268, staylor@lmtribune.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @Sam_C_Taylor.