5 girls volleyball storylines to watch in The Times area in 2025

High school girls volleyball practices started across Illinois this week, and here are five storylines we’ll be watching in 2025 for The Times coverage area.

Can local team make IHSA state finals in 2025?

It’s been six years since a team from the eastern half of the Illinois Valley advanced to the IHSA state finals. That team was 2019 Class 1A state champion Newark, which defeated Illini Bluffs for the title.

If any team is going to break the stateless drought, the Norsemen would have to be high on the list. Newark very nearly did so last season, following up winning the Little Ten Conference’s regular season and tournament titles with capturing the 1A Serena Regional championship before falling in a three-set heartbreaker in the semifinals of the 1A Polo Sectional to a Stockton team that went on to finish as 1A’s state runner-up.

The Norsemen lost key components from last year’s team, such as Addison Ness, Elle Norquist and Times All-Area first-teamer Adrianna Larsen to graduation, but they always seem ready to reload, pile up victories and make a run.

Who else is poised for postseason success?

In addition to Newark, Marquette in Class 1A and Seneca in 2A brought home regional championships and will be trying to repeat the success and add a few more wins come October and hopefully even November.

Marquette is coming off a 24-win campaign, and while the Crusaders lost the potent one-two-three punch of Times All-Area first-teamer Avery Durdan, second-teamer Kealey Rick and honorable mention pick Makayla Backos, a pair of last year’s sophomore standouts – Hunter Hopkins and Kelsey Cuchra – return to take the reins.

Seneca set a school record for wins in a season with 32 last fall, winning the Tri-County Conference championship and a regional title along the way. A now-graduated strong senior class, which featured setter Lainie Olson, was the engine that made the Irish go, but like Newark, Seneca always seems ready to reload and win.

Anyone else?

Another team worth keeping an eye on is Streator, which finished with 10 fewer wins than its program-record-tying 23 in 2023 during an injury-plagued 2024 season and lost a few standouts to graduation, but brings back all-state second-teamer and Times All-Area first-teamer Aubrey Jacobs for her senior campaign.

Four miles south of Streator, Woodland lost a primary weapon with the graduation of Times All-Area first-team pick Malayna Pitte, but has a proven weapon to replace those kills in the middle – the at-times-dominant Grace Longmire – and a long tradition of being a scrappy, tough out come the postseason.

How will Kristina Kore’s 1st season go as varsity head coach at Ottawa?

Kore, a Plainfield South and Illinois State graduate, has been an underclass coach at Ottawa since coming to the school in 2019. With the departure of eight-year coach Jenn Crum – who posted back-to-back 20-win seasons the past two years, including the program’s first regional title since the mid-1990s in 2023 – Kore takes over a program that has been on the rise but lost much of last year’s top players to graduation.

Having coached them as underclassmen, Kore knows the new varsity starters well, however, and will look to hit the ground running when the Pirates open the season Aug. 26 at Dunlap.

Who will make the 2025 Times All-Area Girls Volleyball Team, and who will be our Player of the Year?

Six of the seven first-team selections on the 2024 Times All-Area Girls Volleyball Team are gone to Pomp and Circumstance, including 2024 Player of the Year Skylar Dorsey. That means opportunities abound on the court and for our all-area honors list this coming season.

Some preseason favorites?

Streator’s Jacobs is the lone returning first-team selection and has to be in the conversation. Woodland’s Longmire is the lone 2024 second-teamer back this season, as – like the first team – seniors dominated with six of the seven spots.

There are many standouts eligible to suit up this season after earning Times All-Area honorable-mention accolades in 2024. They include Serena’s Kendall Whiteaker, Anna Hjerpe, Aubrey Duffy and Rebekah Shugrue; Somonauk’s Ady Werner and Abby Hohmann; Seneca’s Brooklyn Sheedy; Earlville’s Audrey Scherer and Bailey Miller; Sandwich’s Jessica Ramey and Alayla Harris; Fieldcrest’s Pru Mangan and Macy Gochanour; Newark’s Taylor Jeffers; Marquette’s Hopkins and Cuchra; and the Flanagan-Cornell trio of Marley Highland, Abbi Armstrong and Aubry Edens.