After a first-round exit in last year’s NCAA Tournament, the Cal State LA Women’s Volleyball team enters the 2025 season with a roster blended of veteran leadership and youthful energy. The squad is determined to be the last team standing, a feat they accomplished just two seasons ago. Ranked fourth in the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) preseason coaches’ poll, the Golden Eagles are hungry to prove they belong with the most dangerous programs in the league.
The program’s trajectory is still defined by its national championship run in 2023, but head coach Juan Figueroa said the quick exit last season had more to do with inexperience than a lack of talent.
“We had many players that were not there [in 2023],” Figueroa said. “I actually thought that we had the right pieces to repeat, but the inexperience, at the end of the day, was a key factor in us not being able to move on.”
He added that the team is using last year as a learning experience and training so that last year’s mistakes don’t reappear this season.
Senior outside hitter Zuhal Cetin, who was a part of the 2023 championship team, acknowledged last year’s disappointment due to their inability to meet their high expectations.
“It was a really unexpected finish for us as a team,” Cetin said. “We were really disappointed because the previous season we won the national championship.”
Cetin added that chemistry has been great this season, and the roster additions are showing a strong desire to perform for the program.
She admitted that the departure of high-impact players such as Emily Elliot and Haley Roundtree leaves a major void in the roster in terms of the level of play, energy, and experience that they brought to the team. But despite the losses, Cetin sees potential in this season’s squad and believes in the balance of energy and leadership that the returning players and the freshmen class bring to the table.
“We know what we need to do exactly on and off the court,” Cetin said. “We’re trying to be a good example for the newcomers, to motivate them and try to tell them that we want to win the national championship this year again.”
Figueroa didn’t sugarcoat the challenge of losing top scorers like Elliot, saying, “There’s not another Emily Elliot, right? She was a very special player who did a lot of things here.”
He added that they have to figure out who is going to step up to “get those seven points that she used to score” for the Golden Eagles every game, calling it “the beauty of the sport.”
That responsibility will likely fall to returning players like Cetin, sophomore outside hitter Samarah DaCoud, sophomore middle blocker Havannah Vogel, and senior defensive specialist Jameson Sanders, all of whom landed on the CCAA’s Preseason Watchlist.
For incoming freshman Anaiya Cooper, the challenge of stepping into a program with high expectations is daunting but exciting.
“I can’t wait to see what playing college-level is like,” Cooper said. “It’s something new, but I’m just ready to play.”
Cooper emphasized the importance of building a tight bond on and off the court with the team.
“We’re definitely talking about working on our culture,” she said. “Just spending time and getting to know each other, like we talk about random facts, and we ask each other questions every single morning that we see each other. We spend a lot of time together, that’s definitely important just to get to know each other.”
While being a newcomer in a program that expects to win may be frightening to some, Cooper said she is motivated and “more excited than nervous about trying to win again this season.”
Despite its pedigree and recent accomplishments, Cal State LA begins the season slotted just behind Cal Poly Pomona, San Francisco State, and Cal State San Bernardino in the CCAA poll. Pomona received 11 of the 12 first-place votes after a 25-4 campaign in 2024. San Francisco State reached last year’s NCAA Championship match, while San Bernardino is projected to have a bounce-back season.
Cal State LA earned 115 points, only two shy of third place. Cetin said she was surprised by the ranking.
“I wasn’t expecting that we were going to be in fourth because when we look at the CCAA tournament last season, we beat San Bernardino, we beat Pomona,” she said. “But it’s okay, we just need to show it on the court. We can’t say it out loud; we need to show the actions.”
On the other hand, Figueroa admitted that despite the program’s recent success, he thought they would be ranked lower because of the talent they are losing. “Everybody thinks we’re not going to be as good without Emily and Haley. But we’ve made it to the NCAA tournament the last eight years. We’ve been top three in the region for many of those years. We’ve been very, very consistent.”
“We are going to be a young team, but a team that is hungry to prove themselves,” said Figueroa. “I’m excited to see what we can do with this group.”
The Golden Eagles open their season on September 4th in a non-conference match, before the CCAA slate begins on September 18th, where they hope to rediscover the magic that helped them lift the trophy two years ago.
