For the first time in a decade, the Bisons women's volleyball team enters U SPORTS play as defending national champions, winning last year's banner in storybook fashion on home court in front of a sold-out crowd.
 
Beginning a new campaign with a fresh banner to be raised (during the home opener this Friday) is an honour and privilege that's not lost on legendary head coach Ken Bentley, a seven-time national champion as bench boss, who enters season 40 with the Herd in 2025-26.
 
"As I told the team, you can't defend a national championship if you don't win the dang thing to begin with. It's a privilege to wear that for the year. That's how I look at it totally. It's not a pressure thing, it's a real privilege to know that you won the national championship last year, and you're still a really good team, and you're going to be competitive," he said.
 
"I think our team is on board for that. It's incredibly special hosting at home and winning it, and being as good as we were and as prepared as we were and playing as well as we did. It's no secret sauce here, we worked really hard."
 
As Bentley noted, the Herd enter U SPORTS play with a roster that retains an enormous core from last year's title run. And while they'll miss the presence of program record breakers Julia Arnold and Katreena Bentley at libero and setter, along with fellow culture constants in Light Uchechukwu, Chloe Ellerbrock, Julia Horne and Emma Benson, they are still built to win now.
 
Overall, 12 student-athletes return from last year's national championship group, seven of whom (Eve Catojo, Brenna Bedosky, Aviendah Plett, Raya Surinx, Ella Gray, Andi Almonte and Chelsea Siebenga) have all been a part of Manitoba's run of three straight trips to nationals, beginning in 2023.
 
The other seven returning veterans in Bethany Carter, Addisen Neill, Ella Gurr, Elia Falcone and Alexandria 'Agra' Haip were all instrumental in Manitoba's Canada West title win in 2024, and of course the grind that led them to U SPORTS glory in 2025.


 
On top of their returning core, Bentley, like he always does, recruited some of the top talent from across the country, and the world.
 
First, he locked in cornerstone athletes from Manitoba in 6'0" outside hitter Delaney Groot, 6'2" middle Naomie Teixeira, 5'9" setter Julia Martens and 6'1" left side Jersey Hansen Young, as well as 5'11" left side Devyn Hildebrand from BC and 6'1" middle Sophie Ince from New Brunswick.
 
Then, he added international flair with the addition of 6'1" right and left side Lucy Jürgensen, who's played on Norway's youth and junior national teams since 2021.
 
Groot is "a really strong athlete" out of the Junior Bisons system who broke a 13-year school record at Westwood for points accumulated on various sports teams. The prior record was 161 points, and she broke that with 163, playing an average of ten sports per school year.
 
Teixeira, whose dad is a former national champ on the men's volleyball team, is a physical middle with years of Junior Bisons experience, along with Martens, the 2024 Volleyball Manitoba Player of the Year and another next generation Bison whose dad Jules claimed national gold with the Herd.
 
Hansen Young, a "tough, physical kid," was a provincial all-star at the 15-17U levels and put up notable pre-season numbers for Manitoba, while Hildebrand, a provincial all-star and one of BC's top talents, has been a "really good six rotation player who isn't scared of the moment."
 
Ince and Jürgensen have been a force at the net, as "big of a block" as it gets, and their calm presence and athletic ability have been noteworthy.
 
To summarize, Manitoba is well equipped to defend their national title, and their pre-season was an early indication of what could be to come.
 
Overall, Bentley's Bisons played in 24 cumulative pre-season matchups, facing off against top U SPORTS and American opponents, as well as squads from across Europe as part of a memorable trip through Slovenia.
 
The Herd went 4-0 in their first tournament of the pre-season, the 1^st International Bank Homecoming Classic, hosted by Minot State, and it was off to the races from there.
 
During the event, Gray, Catojo, Falcone and Almonte were named tournament all-stars, and afterwards, the Bisons won eight overall matches against various Canadian opponents.
 
The highlight of the team's summer was their trip to Slovenia, which served as an invaluable way to integrate the squad's standout rookie class with their returning veterans.
 
"We did have a large intake of first-year players that came from all over the place. We didn't get everybody together until we literally flew into Vienna when Lucy joined us, and off we went. The only player missing was Raya because she was still with the national team program, and we missed her, it would have been great to have her there, but the team was a captive audience to each other," reflected Bentley.
 
"It just seemed like there was no real awkward getting to know you, we were all thrust together, here's what we're doing. In no time at all we found our groove as a team. That was one of the nicest things to come out of the trip. When we came back here, we were already tight. It was cool. We all just came together really easily."
 
During their time in Europe, the Bisons competed against five different teams. While in Graz, Austria they had the chance to split the team in half, and all the first-years played. Their ability to gain in-game reps was critical, and the impact has already been felt.
 
Manitoba also played two different scrimmages in Maribor, Slovenia, which was where their home base was, and they faced off against a "really good" Division 1 team in Koper, on the south end of Slovenia, along with an extremely talented squad from Croatia, who made the two hour drive up to play them.
 
"We played more than I anticipated, but opportunities presented themselves and I just thought here we are. Why would I turn down a competitive experience in Europe just to practice? Even though I'm a huge believer in practice. It was great. It was cool. I thought our team did really well," said Bentley.
 
"The tempo of the offence [from the European teams] was really fast. The serving is really tough and flat. Croatia in particular, their capacity to defend was off the charts good. Their libero just did not let the ball hit the floor. She was really good, arguably their best player. They see the block, they see the floor. They're really creative in their shot making. They just see things really well."
 
 
Depth all across the board
From a team perspective, there are few units in the country with more depth than the Bisons.
 
At the outside and opposite attacker positions, Surinx, Gray and Almonte all enter the season with over 650 career kills, and their stable six row play will allow the Bisons to play in system and with momentum often.
 
In the Homecoming Classic down south, Gray and Almonte combined for 78 kills, which included a monster total of 26 from Gray on 67 total attacks in a 3-2 win over Minot State.
 
"[Gray] has grown so much. She's such a great player and teammate. She's one of the ultimate every dayers. She came here with the attitude of embracing the whole experience and the opportunity. She's done it from the first day she walked in here," said Bentley of the ever-positive BC native.
 
"She is still at the end of practice thanking me for practice, and giving me feedback and saying okay, thank you, still in her fifth year. She does it all the time. It never fails. How do you not enjoy coaching a kid like that? She's unconditional in her desire to do whatever the team needs from her to help the team win, bottom line. That's it. She's started, played huge moments, huge moments at nationals last year, playing with courage, taking big swings when we needed it. She was on the floor for a lot of the huge sets that we won in the end when the stress was at its highest. She was there as a steady constant, but still giving emotional energy. The kid brings it every day."


 
Meanwhile, Almonte – a dynamic athlete who added 58 digs down south – is "our best six row player," according to Bentley.
 
"She does everything. She did everything in the pre-season. She's filled a lot of gaps, she's kept us afloat and kept us in the fight so often with her level of play. She's such a gamer, and she sees stuff before it happens more than anyone else does for sure. She's elite in every way. I can't tell you how many times someone has tried to tip over her and they get roofed. She'll just look over at me and give me a little smirk and a smile," said her head coach.
 
"I'm like yeah man. They think it's easy, but she gets up there. She's blocked so many balls. There are so many tips where people think they can clown her, and she just gets up there and puts it down. It's been cool."


 
When it comes to program greats in the modern era, Surinx is right up there.
 
The back-to-back U SPORTS Player of the Year is coming off a third straight summer with Team Canada, this time with the Senior National Program where she faced off against some of the best players in the world as part of the Volleyball Nations League. Surinx, dangerous in all six positions on the court, played notable minutes all summer, and brings that experience back with her.
 
"She's had a variety of experiences this year. She's been exposed to the highest levels of play, through opportunities in the VNL. She's had way more variety of input this summer than last year. She's had a few more breaks along the way, which has been good for her I think," said Bentley.
 
"It's obvious the summer was very beneficial for her when she came back. She's come back in a much better place this year for sure. She's just more mature and had opportunities to get in against top, top teams and be around it. The sum of it all is she came back a much more seasoned player."
 
Surinx enters the campaign approaching history. Her 981 regular season kills as a Bison are just 193 shy of tying Rachel Cockrell for first in the rally scoring era, and she's only 72 career kills shy of Cockrell, at 1,318 (also one of just 15 players in school history with over 1,000 career kills).
 
Surinx's 127 career regular season aces are also second in the rally scoring era for the Herd, just 22 shy of first.
 
"The nice thing about it is that she's never once focused on the number. That's how she's always been. In her first she was just see ball, hit ball, and I didn't ask for a lot more than that, she was doing it so well. And now she does it with a bit more planning and more experience. It's impressive. It just shows a high level of consistency and commitment and dedication to her physical training and the fact that she's really good every day in practice," added Bentley.
 
"She's still super coachable, she's still humble, she's just one of the girls on the team who loves vibing with her team. It's rare that you're going to find people, despite success and notoriety, remaining super grounded and grateful. Those are my favourite parts about her, talent aside. There's no diva in her. She's down to earth."


 
Fellow veteran hitters Bethany Carter, Kameryn Vanwallegham and Alexandria Haip have been steady. Notably, Carter had more than seven points in multiple tournament games down south, while Haip recorded 13 kills against Montana State Billings.
 
"[Carter] has got an incredibly great arm swing, now it's just gaining experience as a pin hitter. She got a lot of opportunity this pre-season. She works super hard and has improved a lot already. I think she'll go in and play big moments for us this year," said Bentley.
 
"[Vanwallegham] is a super consistent passer, the envy of the team who creates angles so easily without any fuss. She has a really natural feel for the ball, and Agra has had an amazing summer too. She was right in there on the hills in the toughest moments, part of that lead pack. She's played great. She had a lot of opportunity and really took a big step forward this year."
 
In the middle, the Bisons will have one of the deepest units in the country, and it starts with home grown sensations and constants in Catojo, Bedosky and Plett.
 
Catojo's inspiring journey from battling anxiety, to injury and everything in between, has been well detailed. Manitoba's Team MVP from a year ago comes into 2025-26 as hungry as ever, and will add to a storied legacy this year, which includes 502 career kills (and counting) and 248 regular season blocks, which ranks third in the rally scoring era in school history.


 
Side by side with Catojo in terms of career numbers is Bedosky, a tough as nails playmaker whose hitting percentage of .337 ranks second in the rally scoring era, as do her 265 regular season blocks.
 
Additionally, Plett has been "unbelievable" in the pre-season, including 19.5 points in the US tournament down south.
 
"I don't want to miss enjoying watching them play and the level they're at right now. It's just a treat to be a part of how good they've become as players," said Bentley of Manitoba's veteran middles, and senior class overall.
 
"I don't want that to just pass me by. I'm trying to be really cognoscente of how good they are now, and how much I want to make sure I enjoy this last training with them in particular because of all they've done, and just how good they are as players and how good they've been to coach, every one of them. That's at the front of my mind all of the time."
 


New starters at libero and setter
The two biggest changes in the rotation come at libero and setter. The former will be manned by Chelsea Siebenga, who's making the shift from a hitter's position to provide stability in the passing game.
 
A vocal presence and emotional sparkplug for the team for many years, Siebenga has been a fantastic fit at libero.
 
"We were doing some passing in May, and I was like wow, she's doing a really good job right now. That's when the light bulb went off, thinking she could really do this. We had a good conversation about it. She's been great," said Bentley.
 
"Chelsea has been a boss, she's been great. She has the personality to take it on, first of all. Her skill set is really strong. Defensively she's still learning the position a little bit, but her capacity to play out of system is as good as anybody in the country already."


 
Siebenga had 61 digs during the US trip, and her length, athleticism and U SPORTS experience are all immense positives.
 
"She's six feet tall. Her range is enormous. Her passing has been really solid," noted Bentley. "She just embraced it right away. The strength she brings as a libero in terms of her size and her reach is obviously a huge advantage."
 
At setter, Elia Falcone takes over the lead role, once again bringing years of experience to the roster, along with an enormous level of trust and respect from her teammates.
 
Falcone had 192 assists over four games during the Homecoming Classic, dishing out dimes to countless members of the roster.
 
"She stayed in the city this summer to do whatever she could to get ready for [a bigger role]. The team knows she's fully committed, and she has been since she walked in the door," said Bentley.
 
"I get nothing but compliments and gratitude from every person on my team, who has said at one point or another, man we're glad she's on our team. We're so glad we recruited her. That's the station she holds. She's amazing to coach."
 
Overall, the Bisons are extremely well set up at setter. Along with Falcone, Ella Gurr adds another year of experience to the table, while rookie Julia Martens – an All-Canadian at the 17U level – can "throw it down" and "doesn't look like a first-year kid," according to Bentley.
 
"[Falcone] got a lot of match play early, which was good for her, and good for Julia too. Julia's been a gamer, she's done a good job. Ella's played too and she played a bit in Europe. We're setting a little bit by committee, but obviously Elia is the experienced fifth-year player who's going to get a chew at it."
 
Manitoba opens their regular season at 6 pm on Friday against UBC. The team's national championship banner will be unveiled pre-game.