Volleyball continues to grow rapidly at the boys’ level in the United States, and we continue to see a steady increase in collegiate men’s volleyball adding teams. Men’s volleyball athletes tend to excel in the classroom, help universities with enrollment and it is a relatively cost-effective sport. However, I do encourage athletic directors to properly fund all men’s volleyball programs and give them a fighting chance to compete for conference championships. I am all for adding men’s volleyball programs if it is done right.
Over the past year Manhattan University, Bridgewater College and Defiance University have taken the leap to start men’s volleyball. All three of these programs will start their first season during the academic year of 2025-2026 and currently are hitting the recruiting trail hard to fill up their rosters.
Manhattan University
Right smack in the Big Apple is Manhattan University and they will be fielding a men’s volleyb.all team for the 2026 season. The private school undergraduate enrollment is just under 4,000 and offers more than 100 undergraduate majors. The Jaspers will be placed in the Northeastern Conference, which now has an automatic birth to the NCAA Division I Championship Tournament.
Athletic Director Irma Garcia of Manhattan University is no stranger to starting up a men’s volleyball program. Previously she was at Saint Francis Brooklyn, where sadly the president opted to shut down all of sports. Garcia took her talents to Manhattan and started a men’s volleyball program.
One of the first orders of business for Garcia was to hire Chris Schortgen as the first head coach of the Jaspers. Coach Schortgen has previously been the head men’s coach at Hunter College and was on the women’s staff at Pratt University. At both programs Schortgen had a lot of success. With Hunter he developed 13 conference All-Stars, had one of the top Division III programs in the northern east region, posted an overall 47-28 record and during his three years with the program had a conference record of 37-3.
While in college Schortgen played for Mount Olive as a setter and outside hitter. He spent two years with the program and ended up graduating with a political science degree from Virginia Commonwealth. “I’m excited for the potential we must create a new program at MU because it is a perfect blend of high academic university, located in the city of opportunity, and it’s an exciting time for men’s volleyball in our country. I think we are in a great position to build,” said Coach Schortgen.
First Point Volleyball Foundation gave a $100,000 grant to help start the program up. We have seen a ton of growth in Division III, and it is exciting to see a Division I program start up. The boys’ high school level is quickly growing across the country and starting up more college programs will continue to provide opportunities for male college athletes.
Congrats to Chris Schortgen, to Irma Garcia and the whole administration for this head coaching hire and for the official start of the newest NCAA DI men’s volleyball program,” said Wade Garard, Co-Founder of First Point Volleyball Foundation.
Signed Manhattan Jaspers for 2025-2026 season
Name Club Position Hometown
Gabriel Verges CET Blume S Barcelona, Spain
Logan Mainka MVC OH Pewaukee, Wisconsin
Max Larcheid MVC MB Brookfield, Wisconsin
Collin Carroll HVA OH Rowlett, Texas
Sam Morrealle ACADEMY(NY) OH Lake Grove, NY
Nathan Hoggatt CA VOLLEY MB Los Angeles, California
Kai Patchell CA VOLLEY OH Laguna Beach, California
Blake Perkins Maryland Juniors OPP Manasass, Virginia
Drew Blonski MVC S. Franklin, Wisconsin
Jovan Marjonovic Lucky Star MB/OPP Belgrade, Serbia
I had the pleasure of interviewing Coach Schortgen on the KP HERE Podcast (S3, E4) on October 19th, 2024. The episode details how Coach Schortgen will run the Manhattan program, discusses how he got involved in volleyball, and much more.
Bridgewater College
Located in the lovely Central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia lies Bridgewater College. The small private NCAA Division III school’s enrollment is roughly 1,400 undergraduate students, and offers 24 sports (now 25 because of men’s volleyball. Yes!) Students can choose from 60 majors. Heading the Bridgewater athletic department is Curt Kendall. Kendell has been the athletic director since 2000. He was the head baseball coach at Bridgewater for 34 seasons.
When the college announced having a 2025-2026 men’s volleyball team Kendell quickly hired Colton Frey. For the past ten years Frey has lived in the area coaching at the high school, college and club level. While Frey was in college, he played on the men’s volleyball team at Eastern Mennonite University earning the CVC All-Academic Team and the program was NCAA Division III nationally ranked for two of the four seasons he played on the team.
Coach Frey is extremely excited to be the first men’s volleyball coach at Bridgewater. “Building a championship program here is a huge honor. This is a community that is supportive and can provide athletes with what they need to compete at the highest level. It is cool to be in a space where I get to start a program with my vision and set the championship level expectation from day one. It’s neat that I get to do it in an area I’ve called home for the past ten years,” said Coach Frey.
Bridgewater will be competing in the NCAA Division III in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. Below you will find the teams that compete in this conference, which will give Bridgewater a challenging schedule in their inaugural season. Coach Frey informed me that Bridgewater is playing the highly competitive Southern Virginia University program that is usually ranked in the top five in NCAA Division III Men’s Volleyball.
2025-2026 Old Dominion Athletic Men’s Volleyball Conference Teams
Averett University
Bridgewater College
Eastern Mennonite University
Randolph College
Randolph-Macon College
Roanoke College
University of Lynchburg
Virginia Wesleyan
Check out my Spotify KP HERE Podcast (S3, E18) interview with Coach Colton Frey. The conversation goes into depth about how he got involved in volleyball, Coach Frey’s mentors, how he is building his team at Bridgewater, and much more. It is a great way to get an insight into how Coach Frey will develop his program. “Getting a chance to chat with Kevin on his podcast was awesome. He wants to give the listeners the best chance to comprehend who you are as a coach and what your program is all about. The opportunity to share with a broader audience is one I don’t take for granted,” said Coach Frey.
Defiance University
Defiance University, a private school with roughly 600 undergraduate students in Northwest Ohio, made a splash by announcing they will be starting a men’s volleyball program this next academic year. Athletic Director Tiffani Selhorst already had a highly qualified men’s volleyball coach in the department. Jeremy Thornburg is the current NAIA head women’s volleyball coach at Defiance, and it was a natural fit to put him in charge of the men’s program as well. “We are excited to finally add men’s volleyball as a sponsored sport at Defiance College. We believe men’s volleyball can be competitive in the NAIA and the WHAC. I know Coach Thornburg is excited to be leading both programs and with his experience, I know we will reach new heights in both men’s and women’s volleyball. Volleyball is a key piece in the future of Defiance College athletics, and we intend to keep growing and offering opportunities as all our athletic teams make the transition to NAIA,” said Athletic Director Selhorst.
Coach Thornburg started his coaching career as a student manager and assistant for Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne. In 2012, he graduated from Purdue Fort Wayne and gained valuable experience from the legendary coach Arnie Ball. After Purdue Fort Wayne, Thornburg coached and was the director for Team Pineapple out of Angola, Indiana. His dedication to the sport led him to being the Lores College men’s volleyball coach for six seasons. Now he can run two volleyball programs at Defiance.
“Becoming the first Head Coach and being charged with starting the men’s volleyball program is a real privilege and honor. My administration has entrusted me to continue the strong start we had in my first season at the helm of the women’s program. I have an extreme passion for this sport and coaching athletes, and I believe that Defiance College has given me a great opportunity to continue that journey,” said Coach Thornburg.
Defiance 2025-2026 Commitments
Matthew Schulte, Middle Hitter, St. Xavier HS, Ohio
Kameron Engle, Setter, New Palestine, Ohio
Jack Rodriguez, Outside Hitter, Ke’Aloha, Indiana
Braydan Ingram, Vanguard, Outside Hitter, Olentangy HS, Ohio
Kaden Burgeson, Vanguard, Middle Hitter, Olentangy HS, Ohio
Vladimir Solovey, Setter/Opposite, Aruba (International)
Ryan Lindsay, The Academy, Opposite/Middle, Noblesville, In
Trent Cottrell, Ohio Premier, Libero, Ohio
Lucas Hummel, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
Check out the KP Here Podcast S3, E21) interview with Coach Thornburg on Spotify. We discussed how Coach Thornburg got involved in volleyball, who helped mentor him, and discussed Defiance men’s volleyball and much more.
About the Author
Kevin Pratte has enthusiastically been involved in volleyball for over 23 years. Pratte started playing in middle school and was fortunate enough to play NCAA Division 1 volleyball at The University of the Pacific. After his playing career, Pratte got involved in coaching volleyball. In 2009, Pratte was the graduate assistant coach for the University of Nebraska women’s volleyball program. Later in his career, Pratte made coaching stops at University of the Pacific, multiple community colleges, and coached at WAVE Volleyball Club for seven years. Currently Pratte is a physical education teacher in the San Diego Unified School District, San Diego Downtown Breakfast Rotary member, a college volleyball recruiting coordinator, hosts a volleyball podcast show, the owner of the Middle Hitter website and runs a non-profit organization to help raise funds to give boys’ high school volleyball students scholarships to play club volleyball.
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