By Tristan Forde

Disclaimer: One of the sources in this article, Hannah Bellai, is a journalism student and has previously written for The Eyeopener.

The Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Bold women’s and men’s volleyball teams are preparing their return to the courts for the 2025-26 regular season. Both teams are coming off disappointing seasons and hope to find greater success this year.

Women’s volleyball

The women’s volleyball team is leaving behind their 4-18 record from last season and are heading into this new one determined to achieve higher results.

“We had a tremendous experience away from the court in terms of the type of experiences we had and the type of team we were,” said head coach Dustin Reid.

The Bold were unable to make the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) playoffs in February. Discussing their unfortunate season ending, Reid recalls that “we weren’t happy as a team” but still had a “great developmental year” for young players. 

Many graduations and transfers saw veteran leaders bidding farewell to the team. These include long-standing members like Scarlett Gingera, Mary Rioflorido, Jia Lonardi and Kylie Ferguson. With such integral parts of the roster now gone, the team has had to fill in a handful of leadership roles. 

“It’s not easy to replace people who take such a big load everyday at practice,” said Reid.

Last year, Reid put a great focus on developing his players for the future. He acknowledges that this year would have a very young team which has driven them to raise the intensity at practices. Reid explained that there were “a lot of young players that needed to learn to get ready for the next season.”

Veterans on the team who are expected to pave the way include third-year outside hitters Tyra Krapp and Marta Cerovic. Despite this, leadership amongst the team is something that second-year outside hitter Hannah Bellai believes will be “more widespread this year.” 

“We’re finding as a team that it’s better to not just have one person be a leader because it kind of separates people,” said Bellai. “We’re spreading around that role and having everyone take initiative…and giving everyone that respect.”

Bellai commented on the bond that the team has already established. Both returning and newly recruited players—the latter of which include setter Sadie Bird, setter/libero Mattea Di Bacco, libero Addison Othmann and right side Sarina Yaghoobi—have formed a close and optimistic dynamic, setting a promising tone for the new season.

“This year is super exciting for us. The vibes and energy on the team is so positive. Everyone gets along so well and our connections with one another have improved even from last year so it’s really exciting to see what we’re going to do with this team camaraderie,” said Bellai.

With all the team’s preparations for the start of their OUA season, players like Bellai have noticed a shift in their power. 

“We are realizing our potential and you can really feel it in practice, you can feel it in the team room, you can feel it in the pre-season tournaments and games we’ve already played,” said Bellai.

With this new surge of confidence, the team is looking forward to giving the court their all in the regular season.

“It’s really cool to see how quickly we’re progressing as a team and how we’re getting better,” said Bellai.

Men’s volleyball

The men’s volleyball team will be returning with a very different and motivated roster. During the 2024-25 season, the Bold ended with an 8-12 record and fell short of qualifying for the playoffs.

“We were all a little disappointed in the season we had last year. We had a lot of expectations and a lot of good players individually, we just didn’t perform how we wanted to,” said fifth-year libero Tony Tanouchev.

Six players graduated after last season, including staple team names who were present for the past four to five years such as Alex King and Taylor Wenzel. Seven new recruits have joined the blue and gold, contributing to what head coach Niko Rukavina describes as a “completely different program from last year [with] a lot of new faces and energy.”

With only a handful of senior players remaining, players like Tanouchev will take on the task of stepping into a more veteran role on the court.

“It’s a really exciting but challenging new feeling. It’s a nice feeling having all these guys looking up to you and asking you all these questions and you being the go-to guy,” said Tanouchev. 

Once the Bold’s season ended, Rukavina wasted no time building up a diverse recruiting class. 

“There are seven rookies and two transfers. We found them from [British Columbia] to Ontario to Australia,” said Rukavina. “There are a lot of different positions and players and personalities [and we’re] very excited to have them all in the gym and the energy is really good.”

With a long OUA season ahead of them, the team has already managed to build chemistry within this young group. “[The recruits] eat together all the time, hang out after practice, watch Love Island together, we just do everything together,” said first-year outside hitter Brayden Walker.

These changes to the squad’s depth have given the team a new outlook on the season, for which they hope is more fruitful than the previous year. 

“We’re excited to take another chance with a new group of guys to try to correct a lot of the things we did wrong last year,” said Tanouchev.

The Bold have already been sharpening their dynamic and on-court prowess. They were one of a handful of university teams invited to the Canadian Men’s Volleyball Centre in Gatineau, Quebec for the National Excellence Program on Oct. 3. This provided many opportunities for the team to catch their bearings and prepare for the upcoming season. 

Rukavina trusts that, as the regular season progresses, his young team will gradually learn what leadership and camaraderie will look like for them. 

“As we start fine-tuning what our identity is and what type of team we are, we’ll start making [our] goals around that,” said Rukavina. 

Both the women’s and men’s team fly their first official serve against the York University Lions at the Mattamy Athletic Centre on Oct. 23.