The Cowgirls look primed to have a highly successful season after returning 12 players from last year’s team that boasted an impressive 22-10 record and competed in post-season play for the first time since 2019.
Of those 12 returners include five seniors who are hungry to build off the success of last season, which saw the Cowgirls just miss out on competing in the Mountain West championships, falling just one place shy of the top six qualifying teams for the tournament after having to rely on Boise State losing on the same day to qualify. That didn’t happen.
“We’re all hungry for more,” Sonte Stewart, one of the five seniors on the roster, noted of the disappointing end to the regular season last year. “We’re ready for more. We want more. We obviously want to bring the Cowgirl program up to the top of the Mountain West again.”
“Our returners, we know what that feels like,” Kendall Rivera, also a senior for the Cowgirls, added about the heartbreaking end to the regular season last year. “Now it’s about getting all our [new players] on the same page.”
The Cowgirls have the roster to top the Mountain West as well. Not only are they returning 12 players from last year, but many of which were impactful players that helped spearhead last year’s success.
Kasia Partyka, another senior, returns as last season’s Mountain West leader in assists per game. Partyka was also named to last year’s All-Mountain West team. She’s joined up front by Rylee Schulz, who returns as the Mountain West’s fifth best in kills per set and was named as honorable mention to last year’s All-Mountain West team.
Sarah Holcomb also returns to the roster this year after leading the Mountain West in total blocks and both Sierra Grizzle and Skylar Erickson return as well after playing in each game last fall.
“It just keeps the momentum from last season,” Stewart said of her fellow returnees from last season. “It just keeps the standard and keeps up the culture. It’s a lot more competitive, we’ve been able to understand each other better.”
“We know our potential and it’s just [about] trying to reach that now,” Rivera added.
Then add the Cowgirls seven new additions, which includes five freshmen and two transfers, and you have the makeup of a team with an even higher ceiling, especially as the new players integrate into the system.
“They’ve been fitting in great,” Stewart said of the new additions to the team. “They’ve done a great job at trying to understand our systems and really applying it to practices.”
The Cowgirls’ latest additions include interconference transfer Jordan Sandy, who has 215 career blocks which vaulted her to tenth all time in Nevada’s program history in just the two years she was there. The Cowgirls’ other transfer addition, Emma Winter, comes to the Cowgirls with one season of experience at West Virginia, where she saw success with limited minutes as a freshman for the Mountaineers.
The Cowgirls’ youth comes in the form of local Laramie star Maddy Stucky, who was the 2022 and 2023 Gatorade Player of the Year in volleyball in Wyoming. Addy Thorrington joins her from Powell, Wyoming, both being the only two freshmen hailing from Wyoming. Claire Wagstaff, Reagan Sharp and Rya Fingerlin round out the freshman class for the Cowgirls.
“Props to the freshman, it’s scary coming in as a true freshman,” Rivera said. “And props to the transfers, they come in from completely different skill sets, so adjusting to [our systems] is huge.”
“But also, we get to learn from them too, so we get to learn new things and we all get to do it together,” she continued.
While the Cowgirls have only been tabbed for a sixth place finish in the Mountain West preseason polls, they don’t want to find themselves in a position where they must rely on other teams to make the Mountain West tournament again. They want their position solidified atop the league, and that road begins with a trip to Omaha on August 30 where the Cowgirls will open their season against a tough Washington State team that was 26-8 just a season ago.
Scheduling tough teams such as Washington State was a focal point for second year head coach Kaylee Prigge and her staff this year. While the Cowgirls went flawless through their non-conference schedule last season, starting the season with a record-breaking 11-0 record for the program, Prigge felt as if the Cowgirls weren’t truly challenged during their non-conference slate, a factor that played into their struggles through conference play last year.
“We want to feel a little bit more tested as we go into conference play,” Prigge said. “We’re excited about the slate we have ahead of us.”
The Cowgirls will also be tested throughout their non-conference slate by Power Four opponents California, Colorado and Utah before opening conference play at Nevada on September 26.
With fall camp wrapping up and the season just around the corner, Stewart, Rivera and the rest of this Cowgirl squad are all prepared for what looks to be a big season for the Cowgirls where their aspirations are more than just the sixth place finish they’ve been slotted for by the media.
“We’re hungry,” Rivera said. “This year, we want more.”
