Illinois Volleyball kicks of the 2026 season with a big bounce back victory

Illinois volleyball fell to Cincinnati on Friday night before bouncing back to take down Syracuse on Sunday, splitting the opening weekend.

Friday's match against Cincinnati had all the makings of a signature season-opening win for the Illini. The Orange and Blue came out hot, hitting over .375 in each of the first two sets, getting steady production from Taylor de Boer and newcomer Paityn Chapman. They took the first two sets 25-17 and 25-22, holding the Bearcats to under .100 hitting in the opening set.

That changed in a hurry. Illinois' offense went cold in the third set, while Cincinnati found their rhythm. The Bearcats never looked back, taking a competitive fourth set, 25-23, and the fifth set, 15-12, to complete the reverse sweep and steal the season opener.

A big reason for the turnaround was Cincinnati's Sydney Nolan, the reigning preseason All-Big 12 selection, who finished with a game-high 25 kills and was the one player Illinois never really figured out how to slow down.

There were still plenty of bright spots for the Illini. Kristina Starostenko, a junior middle blocker making her own Illinois debut, was very efficient, hitting .500 on 10 kills and only two errors. Three other players collected double-digit kills, led by Alyssa Aguayo with 15.

17 hitting errors as a team and a complete collapse across the last three sets were too much to overcome, and Illinois dropped its season opener in front of 2,282 fans.

It's the kind of finish head coach Chris Tamas has been trying to get his team away from. Speaking at Big Ten Media Day this summer about matches like this from a season ago, Tamas said it simply "eats at my soul." Friday's loss was a reminder that finishing matches is still very much a work in progress for this group.

Illinois volleyball didn't let a disappointing loss linger too long

Illinois didn't waste much time responding. Two days later, the Illini took the floor against Syracuse, a team they had never faced before, and left no doubt from the beginning. They swept the Orange 25-17, 25-17, 25-14 in a quick match that lasted just over an hour and a half, controlling all three sets from start to finish.

Chapman looked like a completely different player than she had against Cincinnati. After hitting just .188 in her debut, she finished the Syracuse match with 16 kills and just a single error, good for a .441 hitting percentage and a match-high 17.5 points.

De Boer chipped in another 13 kills and combined with Chapman for 12 of Illinois' 21 kills in the first set alone. As a team, Illinois hit .400 for the match, more than making up for the previous night's cold stretch.

The Orange just simply didn't have the firepower to keep up. Kiernan Stamey led the team with 13 kills, but Syracuse hit just .125 as a team and never found a way to slow down Illinois' attack. The loss dropped them to 0-2 to open the season, while Illinois improved to 1-1 out of the opening weekend.

The two matches showed two very different versions of this iteration of Illinois volleyball. Friday was about a lead the Illini couldn't hold onto. Sunday wasn't close enough for that to ever become a question. Illinois took control from the first set and never let go.

For a team looking to build off a very disappointing end to 2025, both results are part of the same picture: the talent to blow teams out is certainly there, and so is the challenge of doing that against everyone, not just the teams they're supposed to beat.

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