The volleyball team will start the season at home with a four-team tournament and a lot new faces on the court.

The Tennessee Tournament will be held Friday-Saturday, Aug. 28-29, at the Food City Center at Thompson-Boling Arena. The Lady Vols will play Colgate on Friday at 7 p.m. and Morehead State at 1 p.m. and Fairfield at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

“All three really, really good teams and have a chance to win their conferences,” said coach Eve Rackham Watt, whose full presser can be watched HERE. “We play three matches in basically 24 hours, and then we’ve got a fourth on Tuesday (against Illinois in the Big Ten/SEC Volleyball Challenge in Knoxville), so we’ve got four matches in five days.”

A few players put considerable effort into inviting students to come to the season opener.

The Lady Vols have four transfers and seven freshmen on the 2026 roster after a slew of portal exits at the end of the 2025 season. Rackham Watt and her staff knew a lot of freshmen were coming and combed the portal for players who would also fit with the returnees.

“Our priority was bringing in players who understood the expectations and the culture and wanted to be a part of a program that wanted to win a championship,” Rackham Watt said. “The standards to be a part of this program are not necessarily for everybody, and we were excited about the players that we did have interest from and their talent as well as their mentality.

“We’re excited about the group we’ve put together and looking forward definitely to opening this weekend.”

Roster overhaul is becoming somewhat standard in sports – basketball has 15 new players; soccer added 10 freshmen – with the transfer portal and player movement.

“It’s becoming a little bit more of the norm to work through roster construction on a more frequent basis, so we are constantly working on the cohesion, whether it’s a returning group or a new group,” Rackham Watt said. “We knew we were going to have a large freshman class, so there was going to be some of that meshing that had to happen regardless.”

Rackham Watt also paid a visit to the Pride of the Southland Band to thank the members for their support of the athletics teams.

 

Five of the seven freshmen were able to enroll early last January, as did three of the four transfers, so those eight participated in spring workouts for a headstart on the summer drills and conditioning.

“Kennedi Rogers (sophomore outside hitter) had a great freshman year at SMU and really proved herself in that conference,” Rackham Watt said. She was able to play in the NCAA Tournament last year and it was a big piece of their run.

“Jalyn Stout (senior opposite hitter) comes in from Coastal Carolina, a very unique player, a little bit of a unicorn in terms of volleyball standards. She led the NCAA in triple doubles, which is a stat you don’t really get with volleyball very often. She’ll be in a different role for us, but just a really high level, high IQ, highly competitive player who has a ton of experience.

“Raegan Burns (senior libero/defensive specialist) is coming off an injury, but had two great seasons at Kansas on some championship-level teams. We’ve replaced and brought in I think some really proven transfers, and I think we’ll rely on a combination of  those guys and also our freshmen.”

The Lady Vols also added Nia Hall, a senior outside hitter, who played at Cleveland State and South Carolina, where she led the team in 2025 in kills with 273 and reached double figure kills in 15 matches, including tying her career high of 23 against Clemson.

Tennessee has a core of returning players, including Caroline Kerr, a fifth-year setter, Mackenzie Plante, a senior outside hitter, Sydney James, a senior libero/defensive specialist, Chelsea Sutton, a junior middle blocker, and Maggie Dostic, a sophomore outside hitter who played out of a position as a freshman.

“Maggie is, again, I go back to the type of person and people we have in this program that chose to stay in the program, the character of those players and Maggie’s as good a human being – and I’ve said it anytime anybody’s asked me about Maggie, I say I would take 15 more Maggies,” Rackham Watt said.

“She’s a great person, a great teammate. She would play any role that was asked of her and last year she played not only out of position in terms of playing in the back row, but she played in right back, which is a position she’s never played. But never complained, said, ‘Hey, whatever I can do to help the team.’ ”

Coach Eve Rackham Watt (Tennessee Athletics)

The Lady Vols reached the Sweet 16 in 2023 and came so close to taking out Texas, the eventual national champion, in a quest to reach the Elite Eight. Tennessee exited in the first round in 2024 and 2025. The program has played in five consecutive NCAA tournaments, which is tied for the longest streak in program history, last achieved in 2008-12.

Volleyball has some traditional powerhouses, such as Nebraska, Penn State and Stanford, and the SEC has entered the pantheon with Texas, Texas A&M and Kentucky. Similar to basketball, softball and soccer, the depth across the country – and in the SEC – has elevated the sport.

“It’s hard to even make the NCAA Tournament as good as our sport has become,” Rackham Watt said. “There’re so many good teams playing now and good programs and good coaches, so making the NCAA Tournament in and of itself has been great, but obviously we’re not just happy to make it.

“It comes back to a mentality about the players that you have and the expectations that they have, and I feel like when you’ve got a group that’s really motivated, obviously talented, but also really motivated to have a great season, you’ve got a really good chance. I think it comes down to your leadership, and I feel as good about our senior leadership as I did in that 2023 season.”

Follow KnoxTNToday on Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn. Get all KnoxTNToday articles in one place with our free newsletter. Comments may be sent to news@knoxtntoday.com.

Maria M. Cornelius began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press and a 10th anniversary edition was released June 16, 2026. A third book, “The Legacy of Pat Summitt” will be released Nov. 17, 2026.