Reveling in a Season of Firsts

Stan State Volleyball Team Lands on National Map

By Lori Gilbert

When Stanislaus State’s first appearance in the NCAA Division II Volleyball Tournament ended in a 3-0 (26-24, 27-25, 25-11) first-round loss to Chaminade in the Western Regional, the Warriors had an emotional meeting in the locker room. The players were understandably disappointed.

Third-year coach Lauren Flowers, six months pregnant at the time and admittedly emotional, told them, “This loss does not define you or this season.”

Indeed, the 2024 Warriors, 22-8, rolled out impressive first-time accomplishments and put Stanislaus State on the national volleyball map.

They were the first Stan State volleyball team in University history to win the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Tournament. A banner bearing that accomplishment hangs in Fitzpatrick Arena. That championship meant the Warriors played in the NCAA Division II postseason tournament for the first time. Championship rings for the players are on order.

That’s just hardware, though.

The 2024 team was about so much more.

It was about seven seniors who had graduated and could have moved on, but because of losing a season to COVID, had the opportunity to play one more year.

“I’m going to remember the hard times that made us better — hard conversations I had in my office last spring when we came off a bad season (9-18) and I was trying to convince some of these players to come back,” Flowers said. “I told them, ‘There’s no way you want to end on that note. You have to end on your own terms. I know it’s hard and I know it’s a grind, but it’s going to be worth it.’”

Those seven — Autumn Kirby, Maria Iosua, Haley Burdo, Makenna Carrillo, Gabby Rawson, Alex Byrd and Ellison Weaver — led the way to the NCAA Tournament. They welcomed new players.

The team bonded with an international trip to Costa Rica in summer 2024, which enabled them to get a jump on practices and play early matches. The relationships and quality of play only built from there. Newcomers were as critical as veterans.

There were ups and downs, but the Warriors went to the CCAA Tournament on a successful run.

“Going into the tournament, we all wanted to win, of course, but we didn’t put this stressful expectation of, ‘We have to win,’” Weaver said.

The team approached matches with the same mentality that had evolved during the season.

“A lot of us took it one game, one point at a time,” Burdo said. “It wasn’t a huge expectation for us to win the tournament from the very start.”

Stan State beat Cal State East Bay in the first round and, in the second, beat San Francisco State for the first time. It defeated Cal State LA in the championship match.

“There was a total belief from everyone on the team that the people on the other side were going to have to beat all of us,” Weaver said. “There was a huge belief in each other.”

“Compared to last fall, it was a whole new team, a whole new confidence, a whole new team mindset,” Burdo said.

Mental toughness was an area of focus for Flowers and Assistant Coach Maggie Billingsley. It became as much a part of daily practice as wind sprints and hitting drills.

Flowers came to Stan State as a first time head coach from an assistant coaching position at East Texas A&M (formerly Texas A&M, Commerce).

“In my third season as a head coach, everything I’m doing is an experiment to see what works and what doesn’t and what my coaching philosophy is,” Flowers said. “That was the biggest takeaway of the season. It was nice and comforting to see that doing things the right way wins, still.

“I don’t want to sacrifice competitive excellence. I want to win all the time. We as a staff chose to take care of these players, to care about them as people on the court and off, and that made them better volleyball players. That was the biggest epiphany. I want to hold people to a high standard. I don’t want to sell my soul to win volleyball games. I don’t want to sacrifice my family or my players’ mental health. We can still win.”

Now, the challenge is to build upon this year’s success and continue to improve on foundational elements that were instrumental in this record-setting season.

“Are we going to win a championship every year?” Flowers asked. “I don’t know. There’s a lot that goes into that, but we can consistently win by doing things we’ve been doing.”

It’s a work in progress. Flowers’ first team in 2022 was 19-10 but slipped in 2023. The 2024 team had the best season in school history. It will always be special to her.

“You couldn’t ask for a better way for a special class to go out,” Flowers said.