KANSAS CITY, MO ― The No. 3 Texas A&M Aggies took down three No. 1 seeds, including Kentucky, to win the 2025 NCAA volleyball championship, and even they can’t believe it.
‘What?’ blurted opposite Logan Lednicky as the team was introduced during its national championship presser.The eyes of starting outside hitter Kyndal Stowers enlarged just hearing the words ‘national champion.’ Starting middle blocker Ifenna Cos-Okpalla, who scored the title-clinching point, couldn’t stop smiling, and neither could head coach Jamie Morrison.
The Aggies, who were wearing their championship hats and carrying pieces of the championship net, had possibly pulled off one of the most remarkable championship runs in college volleyball history. Texas A&M’s push for its first title included victories over five ranked opponents during the NCAA tournament, including eliminating No. 1 overall seed Nebraska.
By definition, a No. 3 seed pulling off this kind of dominance would be considered an ‘upset’ at the highest levels. However, don’t tell the Aggies. Since being down two sets against Louisville and pulling the revers sweep in the Sweet 16, the team has been asking, ‘why not us?’ The phrase became a rally cry for and eventually a full-fledged belief.
Morrison said when he started at Texas A&M three seasons ago, he had a vision and mission: to win a championship in five seasons. Still, he revealed Sunday that when he and his staff sat down 18 months ago to ask themselves if they could do it faster, he didn’t imagine this.
‘The reason why we’re all sitting up here laughing at this is [because] right now, we’re in disbelief,’ Morrison said. ‘I could be wrong, but I’m guessing this has never happened ― to take a program where it was to winning a national championship in three years.’
Though the Aggies have made the NCAA tournament every year under Morrison, they weren’t ranked last season and were bounced in the Sweet 16. They had dreams of winning a championship, but they were just that ― dreams ― until senior Lexi Guinn asked, ‘Why wouldn’t we try?’ after Texas A&M made the tournament last year.
Ahead of the season, Morrison told his team they needed to ‘make Lexi look like a genius.’ Perhaps Guinn knew what the rest of the volleyball world didn’t. The Aggies were more than capable; in fact, they were downright tenacious.
The team could have folded after a terrible 3-0 loss to SMU in September, a 3-1 loss to Kentucky in October, and even after a late-season 3-1 defeat against Texas in the SEC tournament. However, they never backed down, no matter who was across the net. Their ‘Why not us?’ motto turned into ‘It is us‘ on Sunday.
After a rough start to the first set, the Aggies switched their defensive formation to better receive Kentucky’s high-pressure serve and started sending more volleyballs towards one of the Wildcats’ best outside hitters, Brooklyn DeLeye, who has been playing through a torn meniscus and also had a tough night Thursday against Wisconsin. Lednicky, Stowers and Ifenna Cos-Okpalla, with help from Emily Hellmuth, closed the set out and turned up the energy.
‘Come on!’ Cos-Okpalla yelled as the set was ending, which seemed to ignite the team. The Aggies went to work, proverbial lunch pail in hand, during the second set. The Wildcats seemed ready and focused again, but their momentum quickly declined. By the arrival of the mid-match break, Texas A&M was up 2-0 thanks to a huge 10-point lead they built in the middle of the set and a staggering 20 total Kentucky errors. The Wildcats’ .021 hitting percentage in the period reflected how unprepared they were for the Aggies’ adjustments. Stowers says Texas A&M might have lost a little bit of the joy they usually play with, but found it at the end of the first and into the second set.
‘We were headstrong coming, like ‘We’re going to win this game. We’re going to take this nattyhome,” Stowers said.
‘The second we flipped that switch and found that, ‘Hey, guys, we’re here to have fun’ … I feel like that just allows us to also trust each other. I think when we’re having a good time, like, we’re so joyful around each other that we don’t ever get at each other. We understand, and we trust each other, like, ‘Hey, you missed that one. No, we’re good. You got the next one.”
That belief in one another showed up in every point on Sunday as Texas A&M cruised to a 3-0 victory. The Aggies have become a sisterhood ― an unofficial team sorority, according to Stowers, Lednicky and Cos-Okpalla. Fittingly, the players shared it’s called ‘Tau Alpha Mu,’ an ode to the first letters in Texas A&M University. To the surprise of no one but the Aggies, their sisterhood powered them to a championship. It’s built on ‘grit’ and ‘love,’ which is written outside their locker room and on hats and T-shirts.
It also rebuilt hopes, as Stowers, who was sitting on her couch last year watching the Final Four, reiterated Sunday. The redshirt sophomore, who suffered four concussions months before and was medically retired, made the 2025 NCAA All-Tournament team with Lednicky and Cos-Okpalla and also won Most Outstanding Player. Stowers had a brilliant tournament run, including 10 kills on .304 hitting and six digs against the Wildcats. She says she joined Morrison because he believed in her when she hadn’t played volleyball in more than a year. Now, she not only has her confidence back, she’s a national champion.
‘[I’m] just so beyond joyful,’ Stowers said. ‘That’s our whole team, and I feel like that’s what our whole team has been all year. I feel like the first day we set foot in the gym during fall camp, our team was goofing off at 6 a.m. in the morning in the training room, making up some crazy scenarios, having a good time. That’s crazy that just came back to me because that’s just who our team has been through the thick and thin, through the highs and lows.
‘Obviously, now on the highest mountaintop. That’s very much so coming through. That’s really all I have. I feel like that’s what everybody has.’