Driven to Win

Women’s volleyball team champions success on and off court

by Deron Snyder

Observers might look at Juniata’s prodigious success in women’s volleyball – 30 Final Four appearances and the current three-peat national champions – and think it must come easy for head coach Heather (Blough) Pavlik ’95.

She leads a bonafide powerhouse that finished 35-0 for the second consecutive season, an unprecedented feat in Division III. The Eagles have won 43 straight conference championships. They’ve won five national titles and been the national runner-up six times. Juniata has become synonymous with excellence in women’s volleyball since the program’s inception in 1977.

“The easy part is going to look at players and seeing their skills,” she said about recruiting potential Eagles. “The difficult part is: What kind of people are they? If someone acts like a diva during the recruiting process, we don’t want them – no matter how good they are.”

Pavlik knows what it takes to thrive at Juniata as both a coach and a player—where she earned All-America honors 1992–1994. She inherited the program from her mentor and former coach Larry Bock in 2011. Ever since, she and Casey Dale ’07, associate head coach, have led the team to new heights of success.

Fueled by competition
As a high school student on a visit from California, Mackenzie Coley ’25 attended a practice and got a taste for how Juniata played volleyball. It whetted her appetite for more.

“It was just how they competed and didn’t let balls hit the floor,” said Coley, a three-time first-team All-America middle hitter. “They played off the wall, and I knew they had that drive. Then I spoke to some players and the way they described it reminded me of my club team, which was very competitive. You have to like competing against yourself and other people at your position.”

Abbey Telesz ’25 was also drawn to the same athletic challenge when she graduated from high school in Parker, Colorado. Unlike Coley – a rare freshman starter – Telesz didn’t play much in 2021 when the Eagles reached the Final Four. She yearned to play more as a sophomore but eventually came to a different realization about her role on the team.

“I went to [Coach] Heather's office and asked what she needed from me to help the team succeed,” Telesz said. “What is it that I need to do to get us where we need to be? I carried that kind of mindset from then on, just putting the team first, focusing on that and passing it down to other people.”

That attitude paid off for Telesz, the backup setter who served as a co-captain over the last three seasons. She helped make practice as tough as any match, never losing the competitive spirit that makes Juniata special. “She’s one of the most important people on this entire team,” Pavlik said.

Telesz figures the backups are the nation’s second-best team. “We beat the starters at times, and they’ll beat us at times,” she said. “Giving our all in the practice gym makes this team as good as it is.”

Going hard can lead to changes in the depth chart, too. “Some young players break through and win a starting position,” Pavlik said. “How does an upperclassman handle that? Truly competitive people will come back and keep battling.”

Making grades beyond the gym
The battle for supremacy isn’t limited to the court. The Eagles compete equally hard for wins and grades.

Coley won academic All-America First Team honors for the third consecutive year from the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA). Graduate students Kennedy Christy ’24, g’25, Olivia Foley ’24, and Kiona Sky Rousset-Hernandez ’24, g’25 also earned AVCA First Team recognition, with Lily Podolan ’25 and Audrey Muth ’26 receiving honorable mention. Olivia Foley ’24 was named AVCA National Player of the Year for the second straight year. Other academic and athletic honors came from the College Sports Communicators who chose Coley, Christy, and Podolan for its 2024 Academic All-America team. Foley received Team Member of the Year.

“Some young players break through and win a starting position. How does an upperclassman handle that? Truly competitive people will come back and keep battling.”Head Coach Heather (Blough) Pavlik ’95

“It’s a reputation that we uphold,” Coley said. “We miss so much when we travel. We really emphasize going to class and paying attention. I don't think it's a competition. It's kind of like the expectation of our team.”

Setting high expectations through graduation “The consistency piece is huge, so the standards have always been the same,” said Pavlik, the 2024 AVCA Division III Coach of the Year.

Players keep that same focus on achievement after leaving Juniata, forming a network of volleyball alumni who want to keep winning in their professional lives – while the team wins in the gym. Current players are inspired by their predecessors, who continue to demonstrate the familiar principles.

“I met a former champion who started a couple of companies and has built a strong rapport within the volleyball community in California, which is a big deal,” Telesz said. “To be part of a good club while also running your own businesses is really cool. A lot of alumni credit their success to the program, not only for volleyball but also the life skills they gain.”

Pavlik said she knows almost every player who has played at Juniata, and there remains a powerful bond between the team and alumni who graduated decades ago. “(Alums) know these players are held to the same standard they were,” Pavlik said. “They walk into the gym and know exactly what current players are going through because it’s been so consistent. I think that helps.”

A niche like none other
During the recruiting process, Pavlik told Coley that Juniata was a volleyball school in a volleyball town. Coley didn’t realize the extent until she saw so many community members at games. She’s still amazed when she walks around town and people recognize her. “It’s so sweet,” Coley said.

Telesz was packing up one day after doing homework at a local coffee shop when an older couple came over. “They said, ‘We thought it was you, Abbey,’ she said. “‘We came to all the games.’ I started talking to them. It’s good to see the connections you can make when you don’t even know someone.”

Lee Grotyohann ’71 mostly watched football and basketball until the early 2000s when he learned just how good the Juniata women’s volleyball team has been. He started to follow the team and now regularly attends multiple games each season, even travelling to two of the last three national championship games.

“It's been phenomenal, but they don’t have to win championships for me to support them,” said Grotyohann, who started an endowment that helps the team fly once or twice a season – which a lot of Division III teams cannot do. “I like to be an added support to the team because they come from all over the country and a lot of times their parents aren’t there.”

With support from alumni like Grotyohann and John Martin ’55, who started an endowment along with his late wife, Anna (Over) Martin ’54, to assist the team, Pavlik can clearly pitch recruits on Juniata’s winning tradition of unrivaled support and fervent backing from the community. Couple that with a great education, small class sizes, and lots of personal attention.

“We’re a national-level program at a small school in a small town and that is a unique environment.,” she said. “You have to compete every day in the practice gym. We're not everyone's cup of tea, but we're going to be exactly what the [right] people want. Our pitch is: ‘Come here and compete for a national championship. Let’s win something significant.’”

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“It's been phenomenal, but they don’t have to win championships for me to support them.”Lee Grotyohann ’71