The Ferris State volleyball team is coming off of a season where they held a record of 27-8 and claimed their third consecutive GLIAC tournament championship.
The Bulldogs made it to the DII Midwest regional championship where their season ended at the hands of the University of Missouri – St. Louis Tritons.
This year Ferris comes into the season with high expectations and expects to compete at a high level once again.
In the 2024 GLIAC preseason coaches poll the Bulldogs were chosen to win the conference and were voted as the #1 team in the GLIAC.
Ferris is returning a large amount of production from their 2023 GLIAC championship team, including five all-conference players, setter Kaylee Maat, outside hitter Olivia Henneman-Dallape, outside hitter Claire Nowicki, libero Leah Bylut and middle hitter Syann Fairfield.
Head coach Tia Brandel-Wilhelm, who is entering her 29th season as the Bulldogs’ head coach acknowledges the importance of having this many returning players.
“It makes it a little bit different, we aren’t starting necessarily from the basics,” Brandel-Wilhelm said. “We are able to start a little bit longer in the process but every year is its own puzzle, this year part of our puzzle is we have a lot of returners, and we need to figure out that solution.”
One of the key philosophies for the Ferris State volleyball team is to get better every day, and that is something that Brandel-Wilhelm pushes to her group.
“One percent better means we do not have to learn everything in one day, we just want to get a little bit better,” Brandel-Wilhelm said. “It is also an accountability that every day you have to get a little bit better, some days one percent is really hard and you have to work for that.”
Ferris is bringing in a strong recruiting class to pair along with a long list of returners, adding four new faces that Brandel-Wilhelm speaks highly of.
“This is just a fabulous group, I think they will be the kind of group you can build a program around,” Brandel-Wilhelm said.
Ferris starts their season on Thursday, September 5, with an extremely tough matchup against division two national championship runner-up West Texas A&M at the West Texas A&M University invitational in Canyon, Texas.
The schedule does not get any easier on the Bulldogs as the GLIAC is full of talent everywhere in the sport, Brandel-Wilhelm acknowledges this, but the team is staying in the moment.
“We are one day at a time, what is this moment like right now, we will worry about tomorrow moments tomorrow,” Brandel-Wilhelm said. “We know our conference is going to be really strong this year, but that’s later.”
The Bulldogs will open their season with an exhibition game at home against DI opponent Central Michigan on Saturday, August 24 at 4 p.m.