When Matt Ulmer came aboard as Kansas’ head volleyball coach a year ago, he inherited a team with a host of juniors and seniors.
Ulmer added a trio of international players because given the late stage at which he took over, that was one of his main ways of acquiring new talent.
Now many of those experienced players are gone, either having exhausted their eligibility or having gone elsewhere as graduated transfers, and the three international players have left for other schools: “I think this day and age there’s just a lot of reasons to transfer that even in the past you wouldn’t have considered,” Ulmer said on a recent episode of his “Hawk Talk” radio show.
With just one transfer coming in and a whopping six freshmen in this year’s recruiting class, then, it all makes for a very young team that will take the court this fall.
“We didn’t have a 21-year-old on the roster until yesterday with Raegan Burns,” Ulmer said on April 14. “I’ve had teams at Oregon where we had like six 23-year-olds. Now we have one 21-year-old.”
But, he also said, “I think our young group is ready to step in and have their time.”
The new group of Jayhawks brings a high level of athleticism. Ulmer said that the three freshmen who enrolled early — outside hitter Avery Poulton, middle blocker Jaeli Rutledge and opposite hitter Taylor Stanley — are all capable of touching 10 feet, 3 inches, with two able to get to 10-6.
That could make for a more terminal offense come the fall, Ulmer said: “All of a sudden we can play at a different level.”
It also helps that the group includes some high-caliber talents. Stanley, according to at least one recruiting site the top player at her position in the 2026 class, has a chance to be “really, really special,” Ulmer said.
“She hits out of the back row as good as any freshman I’ve seen,” he said, “and that’s including Mimi Colyer, who played for me and is one of the best back-row attackers. But she hit a ball against Creighton this weekend that I was like, ‘That is like a Mimi swing.’ And it was a freshman.”
KU may be able to deploy Stanley as a six-rotation opposite hitter. Right now, in fact, she’s KU’s only opposite in the gym. But she will be joined by fellow freshman Tessa Dodd, a 6-foot-4 pin hitter from Laramie, Wyoming, who played more on the left side in club and high school volleyball but will slide to the right with the Jayhawks.
Meanwhile, Avery Poulton, 6-foot-2 from Bountiful, Utah, has experience on the right but is playing on the left. Ulmer said that the ball control element of the game will be newer to her, but described her as a player KU can deploy in a similar fashion to recently graduated Rhian Swanson.
She partners with returning outside hitters Grace Nelson (2.50 kills per set on .201 hitting, plus 2.65 digs per set), Kenzie Dean and Logan Bell (who also plays as a defensive specialist). Freshman Ryan Sadler will also join the fold soon.
The middle includes returning first-team all-conference selection Reese Ptacek — still only a junior — along with senior Aisha Aiono and the freshman Rutledge, with two-sport athlete Cydnee Bryant arriving in the fall. Cristin Cline and Ellie Moore are back at the setter spot after Katie Dalton moved on.
KU’s one transfer addition of the offseason to this point is Olivia Hasbrook, a junior libero from Eureka, Missouri, who played her first two seasons at Ohio State and appeared in every possible set each of her years with the Buckeyes, averaging 3.73 digs per set in 2024 and 3.38 in 2025.
Adding Hasbrook had a lot to do with the condition of Burns, who tore her ACL and meniscus early in the 2025 season. That did not prove to be a significant detriment to the Jayhawks last year because they had brought in Ryan White from Oregon State, who had an excellent season. Ulmer said he expects Burns — KU’s libero in 2023 and 2024 prior to his arrival — to “be her best self” when the fall begins, and added that it has been helpful to get her reincorporated more and more because of her leadership.
“But with that, can’t count on her being ready to go come that time, and so Olivia, we thought we needed a libero with experience, and Olivia had had two great years at Ohio State,” Ulmer said. “And she’s from St. Louis and she’s got a lot of some of her best friends who are here at KU and she decided that she’d rather go to KU and she’s from St. Louis, which that’s exciting, isn’t it?”
Junior Heidi Devers is also on the roster as another libero/defensive specialist.
Of note, although Ulmer didn’t discuss this on the radio show, there is still a spring portal window pending for volleyball. It opens on Friday and closes May 15. Volleyball rosters may contain up to 18 players under the current rules. With 13 players in Lawrence this spring and three freshmen arriving in the fall, KU still has room to add a couple if it so chooses.
Ohio State’s Olivia Hasbrook digs the ball against Northwestern on Friday, Nov. 21, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio.
Ohio State Athletics