For the first time in 19 years the Wildcats volleyball team ended their regular season play as Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) champions. They were dominant all season with a conference record of 16-2 and sweeping 11 matchups 3-0. This will carry them into the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament which makes 12 straight NCAA playoff appearances for the highly touted head coach, Mario Andaya.
Andaya began his coaching career at Central in 1996 and has accumulated over 450 coaching victories following his 29th season. With the last championship coming in 2005 it has been a long time coming for the seasoned head coach. “We’ve talked about how hard it is to win a GNAC title, it’s spread out through a lot of different teams, and back then I had hair,” Coach Andaya said.
Fifth year libero, Hannah Stires, along with many other players on the team have been working towards this goal for years now and talked about what it took for them to finally hoist the GNAC trophy. “I think we put a really big emphasis this year, more than past years, on being there for each other,” Stires said. “I feel like this year is probably the most selfless team I’ve ever been a part of. I think this year, this was probably the most tight knit team that we’ve had so far.”
Part of the success gone into this season is the depth the team has, and it is showcased as five players were named to GNAC All-Conference teams. First team included Stires, fifth year middle blocker, Emma Daoud-Hebert, and fifth year outside hitter, Marianna Payne. Senior middle blocker, Morgan Halady, and sophomore outside hitter, Ellie Marble, both were named as honorable mentions for GNAC All-Conference.
Daoud-Hebert had an incredible season, having been named first team all-conference for the third season in a row. Doaud-Hebert’s hitting percentage of .446 is the second highest in the NCAA DII. She has two GNAC player of the week awards on the season, one of which was earned after averaging a staggering .621 kill percentage for the week.
Payne earned all league first team honors after a breakout season. Payne set a new personal record of 292 kills this season, an average of 3.28 kills per set. On Oct. 10, Payne put up 14 kills against Alaska Fairbanks, followed by a 20 kill game against Alaska Anchorage just two days later. These two standout performances earned her GNAC offensive player of the week.
The hardware does not stop at the GNAC trophy and All-Conference teams as Stires was awarded GNAC Defensive Player of the Year and Coach Andaya was recognized as GNAC Coach of the Year.
“I think [Coach Andaya] has this ability to inspire anyone he talks to and I truly believe that,” Daoud-Hebert said. “If you look at us from day one and where we are now. Our growth as players, people and leaders has grown astronomically every year. We owe him everything, this program is built on [Coach Andaya] and I hope he knows that.”
Stires had a historical season, earning first team all conference for the third time in a row and defensive player of the year. Stires’s 438 season digs contributed to a total of 1,962 career digs, the 8th most in the GNAC of all time. An average of 5.69 digs per set placed her at 9th in the nation for the season.
To make the ending to GNAC play even sweeter the team clinched the championship the game before senior night meaning the following game was one to not only honor those seniors, but to celebrate the hard work of everyone involved in their success.
“It was a special night for a lot of different reasons. The fact that we got to celebrate on our senior night was just the cherry on top, like what more can you ask for?” Stires said. “We felt so blessed, all our little minions, our underclassmen, they did everything they could to make us feel special but at the end of the day it was about everybody. Something we talked about in the beginning was that it’s the foundation built on players who don’t always get the recognition so I was glad they felt seen too.”
Coach Andaya credits not only the current players on the roster for getting them to the point they are at now, but the players from the past too. Emphasizing the point of all the great leaders they had to look up to when they first arrived.
“For me personally, when I first got here, I was quiet and didn’t really talk to anybody,” Payne said. “Having so many extroverted and caring people surrounding me helped me slowly start to come out of my shell and come into the person I am today.”
These seniors went through tough times and adversity as they experienced an unorthodox first year of college with the COVID quarantine. Flash forward five years later and they were able to celebrate their hard work with a championship in front of their friends and family at home. Daoud-Hebert highlighted what that first year with the team looked like and how it may have been different to other classes freshman years.
“We weren’t necessarily playing for games, we were really just training every single day,” Daoud-Hebert said. “Some of us were here every day of the summer and we did not necessarily know each other on a deeper level yet. It was difficult because we were still learning how to build chemistry on the court, but when we did it was so rewarding. It was a really weird time, we didn’t know when we were gonna play.”
With five seniors on their way out, the roster will have some turn around come the offseason. Not to worry for the ‘Cats though as many of their roster saw the court for a duration of time this season as Coach Andaya and the Wildcats look to run it back next year.
“I think we have a lot of great experience coming back. We had a lot of people play this last year. We had true freshman playing, we had redshirts playing for us stepping into starting roles when kids were hurt or sick. They know what it’s like to grind and we’re hoping to continue on to success next year,” Coach Andaya said.
While the GNAC trophy may be in Ellensburg, the team itself has even bigger aspirations as they begin the NCAA DII West Region Tournament on Dec. 5. They travel to Pomona, Calif. to play No. 12 ranked Point Loma Nazarene University where a win will advance them to the round of the Elite Eight.
