Liberty Volleyball Set to Open Season at Buffalo Invite
8/28/2025 9:15:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
The Liberty volleyball team begins a new era, competing in the Buffalo Invite to open the 2025 season. The Lady Flames will take on Marist (11 a.m.) and Buffalo (7 p.m.) on Friday before facing Rutgers at 6 p.m., Saturday.
Live stats (StatBroadcast) and live video (YouTube) will be available for all matches this weekend.
Live stats (StatBroadcast) and live video (YouTube) will be available for all matches this weekend.
- The Lady Flames are led by first-year head coach Jeremy White, who coached Southeastern Louisiana to back-to-back SLC titles in 2022 and 2023. The Lions went 79-18 over the last three seasons.
- Liberty graduated six senior starters from last year's team, which went 13-18, including 7-11 in CUSA play. The Lady Flames return just 12.7 percent of their kills from last season (180-of-1,414) and will look to a mixture of freshmen, returners and transfers to fill in.
- The Lady Flames will be looking for their first-ever win over a Big Ten program (at time of meeting).
- Liberty was voted to finish sixth in the 2025 CUSA Volleyball Preseason Poll.
- Junior Molly Littlefield, a transfer from Gardner-Webb, ranked sixth nationally with 5.40 digs per set in 2024.
- Liberty returns its two setters from last season, Charli Crowson and Charli Morris. Crowson led Liberty in both assists (583) and aces (37).
- Sophomores Paige Overcash and Carly O'Brien look for breakout seasons on the pins. Overcash had four 10-kill matches in limited action, while O'Brien served mostly as a defensive specialist.
- In the middle will be transfers Zoe Hall (TCU) and Layla Collins (Virginia Tech), along with freshman Laney Daniell.
- Junior outside hitter Jenna Otts, a 2023 All-Big South second team selection at Gardner-Webb, looks to make a big impact in her second year at Liberty.
- Jeremy White begins his first season at Liberty. He served as head coach at Southeastern Louisiana for the last six years, posting a 113-58 record and leading the Lions to two NCAA Tournaments. Last year, Southeastern posted a nation-leading 24-match winning streak. White is a three-time Southland Conference Coach of the Year and four-time LSWA Louisiana Coach of the Year.
- Former Tulsa head coach Ryan Wills (2014-22) will serve as an assistant coach on White's staff. Mackenzie Martin is in her first year as an assistant coach after finishing her collegiate playing career at The Citadel last season.
- The Lady Flames return to New York for the first time since 2023, when they went 3-0 at the Black Knights Invitational, beating High Point, host Army and Yale.
- Liberty has won its season opener three out of the last four seasons. Last year, Liberty opened the season with a 3-0 setback to Iowa (25-23, 25-23, 25-15) in the Puerto Rico Invitational before topping Akron in four sets the next day.
- With Liberty's roster turnover over the last two years, junior Charli Morris is the only Lady Flame on the 2025 roster left over from the 2023 season.
- Liberty welcomes 11 newcomers this season, including four transfers. Graduate students Zoe Hall (TCU) and Shyia Richardson (Louisiana) join the Lady Flames, along with junior Molly Littlefield (Gardner-Webb) and sophomore Layla Collins (Virginia Tech). A total of 17 of the 18 players on this year's roster are in either their first or second year with the program.
- Freshman Kayla O'Brien joins her older sister, sophomore Carly O'Brien, on the Lady Flames' roster. They are the first pair of sisters to play for Liberty Volleyball in the same season since Abby and Kate Phillips in 2021.
Players Mentioned
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