Chicago, Ill - The Illinois Tech men's volleyball team has completed their pre-season practices. They have an exhibition match under their belts this week. And now it's time to raise the curtain on the 2025 regular season, as the Scarlet Hawks will host #2 nationally-ranked New York University Friday night at the Keating Center.

To prepare for the season opener, the team had an exhibition match against a local semi-professional team, VLA Chicago Sweed, on Tuesday, and Head Coach Mike Oswald was pleasantly surprised with the way the team performed.

"I'm feeling a lot better (about where the team is at) after watching last night's game and going back and watching the film," said Oswald. "A couple of key guys traveled a bit here and there over break, and you don't know what regimen they stuck with. But we played good volleyball (Tuesday) night. We put it all together when it mattered, and and now we have to go put it all out there again on Friday" Oswald said.

To get the team prepared for Northern Athletics Collgiate Conference (NACC) play that will start in mid-February, Oswald put together a slate of tough non-conference matches against several nationally-ranked NCAA Division III programs. In addition to NYU on Friday, the Scarlet Hawks have matches scheduled against #18 ranked North Central College (January 23rd), as well as #3 ranked Cal Lutheran and #15 ranked UC-Santa Cruz (both on March 15th).

The pre-conference slate of matches gives Oswald and assistant coach Joe Kelley an opportunity to both get their core players competitive match play, while at the same time give the team's depth players a chance at playing time to prepare them for any opportunities for match play as the season progresses. 

"It's definitely a mix of (playing regulars and reserves)," said Oswald. "We've got an idea of who some of our our strongest contributors are going to be, and we're going to put them out there against the toughest competition, and and see how we match up against the strongest teams that we face. But then we also need to get get everybody on the court to get them game time, so that our practices are stronger and create that intensity back at home in our gym. So that's pretty much typical" Oswald said.

While the team lost three graduating seniors, including two key contributors in Grant Couper and Jackson Van Engen, the Hawks return 10 players from last year's squad: seniors Alec Donald(2024 All-NACC), Riley Laite, Eli Sherman and Bryan Evans; juniors Elijah Johnson, Paul Henderson, and Jelani Kimoto; and sophomores Aaron Hanny, Colten Farrell and Zachary Baus. Oswald feels he has a solid group of returners that will provide veteran leadership, especially for the incoming freshmen. Oswald noted the team has five captains for the season: Sherman, Johnson, Laite, Donald and Henderson. "It's a good group" said Oswald. Oswald mentioned the five captains will also be counted on to be key contributors on the floor as well.

Joining the squad this season are seven freshmen: Erik Jones, Raul Matos, Kyler Russell, Matthew Michler, Andrew Franks, Sebastian Dominguez and Maximo Dowling. As with all newcomers, Oswald knows each player will develop and contribute at a different pace.

"Just a lot of learning and and getting used to the college game, getting an understanding that they have a couple of gears that they haven't had to shift into yet," said Oswald. "Dowling and Matos, they've they've got some some good experience. Maximo comes from Vermont, but he's gotten a chance to play with a lot of adults already. Raul's from Puerto Rico and those teams play in the the top level and are kind of already used to the speed of the game. But everybody's (all of the freshmen) have got something to work on. Some of them are are getting used to decisions at the service line. Some of them are getting used to a good, solid, repetitive footwork that's consistent to to get around the court consistently and be efficient for themselves, but also be predictable for their teammates to work around" Oswald said.

When asked to identify some of the strong points of the current team at this stage of the season, Oswald didn't hesitate to speak to the team's culture.

"Honestly, it's the intangibles," said Oswald. "We're a really tight-knit group. I think they all understand why each other are here and they get the most of of each other's time. From a volleyball standpoint, our strength is our first contact. We're not going to let the ball hit the floor easily. We're going to annoy you as blockers. I think we've got good, patient, disciplined defense. It's going to scrape up a lot of balls off the floor and and and make teams fight for points" Oswald said.

The Scarlet Hawks, coming off of a sixth-place conference finish last season and a first-round post-season tournament win over Benedictine, come into the 2025 season as the sixth-ranked team in the conference based on the NACC 2025 Pre-season men's volleyball poll. Oswald knows the conference is pretty loaded, but is excited for the challenge.

"We were ranked sixth in the pre-season poll, which I think it's reasonable. I also think we can beat that. Our biggest goal is to host a first-round game at the Keating Center" said Oswald. To do so, the Scarlet Hawks would have to finish in the top four in the regular season standings. Oswald mentioned the progress the women's soccer team has made over the last few years as an inspiration for the steps he would like to see his team take. "Shout out to Scarlet Hawks women's soccer" Oswald said.

"The conference is going to be fun, and that's going to prepare us, too," said Oswald. "You know everybody has improved. I feel the teams at the top. they returned everybody, and watching some of the commitments from this last season. You know some of the teams that haven't made playoffs(recently). (Those teams) are going to be knocking on the door. So the conference is going to be really strong. I do think it shakes out very similar to the way it did last year. I think we're going to see Dominican and Aurora (at the top). I think that we will end up in a similar spot (from last year's standings) and improve potentially. But it's gonna be a fun season. I think there's going to be a lot of teams in the top four that all kind of beat each other throughout the year" Oswald said.

The Scarlet Hawks open the 2025 season on Friday, January 17th, when they take on NYU at 7:00 PM at the Keating Center.