Consistently Us: Volleyball 2025 Season Preview

Playing volleyball in the Big Ten, the lights are always on, and a team’s best is required in each and every match. That’s why the focus for head coach Adam Hughes’ 2025 Maryland volleyball squad will be playing consistently in each and every match. 

“Everyone in the Big Ten is good,” Hughes said. “You can’t have an off day. One of the things that we’ve been trying to preach is consistency at practice because we want consistency in performance.”

No off days. No sleeper opponents. The Terrapins are ready to treat each of their opponents on their 2025 schedule like they’re the top-ranked team in the nation.

“We just want to be consistently us,” senior Ally Williams said. “Play our game, no matter who we’re competing against.” 

Maryland’s schedule this season is built to elevate the team as it progresses, readying the Terrapins for upcoming opponents with each passing match. Coming off a 14-17 season, this season’s edition of Maryland volleyball is determined to reset the barometer. 

“We feel like if we can get to good, there’s a chance this team can be great,” Hughes said. “Our theme this year has been that: Do good, be great. To do that, we know we’re going to have to raise the standards.”

It started in the offseason with a new training model and a handful of new additions. 

“The one thing that we did a lot differently this year is looking at the season as a true 12-month model,” Hughes said. Instead of waiting for summer or for the incoming freshmen or transfers to get to College Park, the returning members started prepping for 2025 as quickly as possible.

Another change came from replacing an intersquad scrimmage with an exhibition match against Georgetown. 

“We want to be prepared to take on the season from the jump,” Hughes said. “I’m glad that we’re trying to change that model a little bit.”

Part of that new model includes four transfers and three freshmen that have each been brought in intentionally with a vision for the present.

“The portal has been a good thing for us,” Hughes said. “All four (transfers) have Power 4 experience. We feel like we took a core of the past and filtered in things we needed. The transfers have done a really good job acclimating.

One transfer — junior Haley Melby, who comes to College Park via Kentucky — is already catching the attention of her teammates and she looks to elevate Maryland volleyball. 

“She’s a gamer,” Williams said of Melby. “No matter the situation, she really wants to win, and she’ll find any way to win. Whether it’s her serving, passing, blocking, or hitting, she really can do it all, so I’m excited to see her play this season.”

Another transfer, senior Ajack Malual, represented Maryland at Big Ten Media Days and will be a staple of Hughes’ squad this season.

“AJ deserves all the attention she’s gotten from media day,” Hughes said. “She has the potential to make a huge impact.”

The three freshmen — Nikki Tawil, Addie Canady and Ellis Crawford — have stood out to the vets since their arrival in College Park. They’re competing for starting spots and are ready for the consistency that Hughes expects to see in 2025. 

“They’re just bringing fire,” Williams said. “They’re just really excited to be here. They show up every day ready to work. We had eight seniors leave, so it’s a big transition, but it’s really nice and refreshing to have new people come in ready to work hard.”

They’re benefiting from the mentorship of their peers, who know what it’s like to compete in the nation’s best volleyball conference straight out of high school.

“I know exactly what they’re feeling,” junior Eva Rohrbach said of her message to the freshman. “I just hope they find leadership in us. We’ve been able to take them under our wing and help them with the struggles of being a freshman because every game is so scary when you’re a freshman.”

Hughes said that one of the nice things that transfers and freshmen bring in is a perspective of what’s already good about the program they’re joining. He said the new faces have been great at reminding Maryland about what’s going well, specifically a strong core of returners.

One returner, redshirt sophomore Olivia Ruy, is back in College Park for another season and is coming off a spring and summer that has the potential to propel her to being a premier player in the Big Ten. 

“She’s someone who’s had a great preseason for us,” Hughes said of Ruy. “She's a workhorse. She’s so diligent. She could have a huge impact if she can have a good season. She’s someone we’ll highlight moving forward for sure.”

The season starts down in Conway, South Carolina, this weekend with matches against Coastal Carolina (Aug. 29) and North Carolina (Aug. 30) — a team that made the NCAA Tournament in 2024. 

“We decided that we wanted to take a pretty good shot at tough competition out of the gate to see where we are,” Hughes said.

Maryland will head up to Baltimore the following weekend for three matches against Old Dominion (Sept. 5), William & Mary (Sept. 6) and UMBC (Sept. 7). From there, the Terps will host 12 of their remaining 25 matches in College Park, a place they want to see rocking every day. 

“Very very important,” Rohrback said about home attendance. “It helps more than fans will ever know. Just the noise they bring and the band right up on the away-side bench is awesome and it just gives us a lot of juice.”

They’ll need that home juice when two specific opponents, Penn State (Oct. 5) and Wisconsin (Oct. 12) — two schools ranked in the top 10 to start the year — come into town. Maryland Athletics announced that the Terps’ contest against the Nittany Lions will be on the main court at the XFINITY Center , and look to build off the attendance they pulled last season against Nebraska of 13,071.

“Our thing is we want to show up the same way for every game no matter who we’re competing against,” Williams said. “Whether it’s the top of the Big Ten or the bottom of the Big Ten, we want to show up the same, compete the same and have the same composure on the court.”

It’s been a grind of an offseason from the jump, but it’s preparing the Terps for another year in the Big Ten. 

“We’ve learned a lot about perseverance,” junior Eva Rohrbach said. “The springs are always hard and testing, so I’m proud of this group standing all the tests that the spring and preseason has had to offer.”

The preseason has been a time of steady improvement, the kind that’s been a welcome sight for Huges. 

“This year, our offense has been something we’ve been trying to evolve,” Hughes said. “We tried some things this spring to see if we can add some benefits to us and so far, so good. I’ve liked what we’ve been able to see and produce in the preseason.”

Now the season’s here, and the Terps are ready for the chance to constantly improve the stature of the program with their consistency amidst adversity.