IU Columbus’ Cora Baker serves the ball against IU Southeast Oct. 22, 2024 at CERA Sports Park in Columbus.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
After coming within one win of making the River States Conference Tournament in its first year in the conference, the IU Columbus volleyball team has a definite goal heading into the 2025 season.
“We ‘re going to make the tournament this year,” IUC coach Jose Olivo said. “Last year, we were one game way from making the tournament. This year, we’re going to make it.”
The Crimson Pride have adopted the motto “Create Our Legacy” for its third year overall as a program.
“From my perspective, volleyball last year was the ‘almost’ season,” IUC athletics director Zach McClellan said. “That’s how I define it in my head. We were so close, and we almost pushed over the top, but we didn’t quite get there. When you get almost there, there’s a disappointing feeling, but the performance was outstanding from a Year 2 team at 10-13. But the question is, ‘How do we get past that into the next phase?”
Olivo has added a few new freshman and transfers to go along with a core of returners. One of the newcomers is senior transfer Ruthie Bingham, a Trinity Lutheran graduate who played two years at Mount St. Joseph before returning to Trinity as an assistant coach last year, when it won the Class A state title.
“Actually, like eight months, I didn’t touch a volleyball,” Bingham said. “I started coaching again, and I realized that I wanted to end how I saw the (Trinity) girls ending their season. Watching them do that sparked me to want to play again and just to kind of go out with a bang.”
Olivia Embry, a Wes-Del graduate, is the only other senior. She has been with the IUC program since the beginning, along with juniors Abigail Watson (Brown County), Cora Baker (South Adams), Alyvia Luce (Jeffersonville) and Alaina Wesling (Marion).
Baker has been a second-team All-Conference player each of the past two years.
“I think that Cora is the image of our volleyball team,” Olivo said. “Two years straight of second-team All-Conference, this year, she’s going to be first team. She’s our captain, the person that I go to, the most efficient player that I have.”
“I’m just excited,” Baker added. “I feel like there’s a lot of potential within our group right now. We have a lot of incoming freshmen, and having a deeper bench helps in practice and just having a better support system around us. I think that we have a lot of potential to actually make conference. Our rankings came out, and it lit a big fire under all of us because we don’t agree with it. I think all of us are just ready to start the season and show everybody in our conference, show everybody in the town what IU Columbus volleyball can do.”
Sadie Egan (sophomore, Terre Haute North) returns as the starting setter. Adelynn Anderson (sophomore, Brownstown Central) and Riley Scroggins (sophomore, Southwestern-Hanover) also return.
The newcomers are junior transfer Jada Munro (Alma, Michigan); sophomore Journee Brown (Seymour) and freshmen Addison Robinson (Columbus East), Bailey Stevens (Yorktown), Ava Granson (Cathedral), Alexis Lehew (Portage), Mikaela Salinas (Lake Central), Bridget Call (Polo, Illinois), Alessa Phelps (Crawford County), Maria Otero (Boone Grove) and Kami Vester (Yorktown).
“We’ve dealt with a lot of injuries and other certain circumstances and not having exact players we needed at certain positions,” Egan said. “So us bringing in as many freshmen as we did this year, we’re all super talented and we’re so happy to have them all. They’re just really going to add to our team, and I think that’s the one thing that we needed to push us into that conference because we’re already so close without them, so I know with them, we can get it done.”
“It’s about putting our stamp in Columbus that says, ‘We’re here to stay,’” Olivo added. “One of the targets that I’ve always had since the moment I was named head coach of IUC is that we want to get to a point where every single player in high school for Columbus East, Columbus North, for Hauser, for Jennings County, Trinity Lutheran, they all want to come here. In order for that to happen, we need to win. The way to attract better players is playing better.”
