Volleyball Program Has Impressive History of Success

Volleyball is a sport that doesn’t always get a lot of headlines or isn’t often put in the spotlight. But with the addition of great players over the years, combined with talented coaches, Stockton has built a winning program worthy of attention.

The volleyball team has advanced to the NCAA Tournament 12 times, the first time in 1999. It has also won New Jersey Athletic Conference championships 14 times, including eight in a row from 2008 to 2015.

Stockton Athletics Hall of Famer Sue Newcomb was an important piece of the puzzle. Newcomb coached four women’s sports teams at Stockton during a time when Stockton was in its formative years in sports. In fact, she was the first head coach in the history of all four sports she coached -- volleyball, softball, field hockey and women’s basketball. With volleyball, she won 362 matches, a New Jersey Athletic Conference title and an ECAC title in her 23 seasons.

For former players like Tracy Smith, who was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015, Newcomb’s presence at Stockton was one of the reasons she chose the school.

“It was such a privilege to be here as a student athlete and such an honor to be part of this Hall of Fame family,” Smith said at her induction ceremony. “…Sue Newcomb is the one who recruited me. As a student athlete, you’re looking for a coach that you can play for and you feel comfortable playing under and Sue had all those qualities, great coaching style.”

Longtime Stockton assistant volleyball coach Greg Langan saw a lot in his 21-plus years with the program. He literally saw it grow from its infancy to the powerhouse it is today.

“The volleyball program started the turnaround under Coach Eric Illjes who was a very good volleyball player himself,” said Langan, who recently retired. “He brought me on as his assistant. We played together for years. Of course, coaching helped. But it was the players who actually turned the program around.”

He said initially the NJAC didn’t get an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament and there was “little respect across the volleyball world for the state as it wasn't a real hotbed for the sport. Once Stockton won the conference a couple of times, the conference winner was finally given an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament. That afforded the entire conference more credibility.”

Langan said after that, New Jersey players who had been going to out-of-state colleges started to remain in New Jersey and the conference became more competitive as a whole. Langan said top volleyball players from surrounding states began to take a serious look at Stockton, too.

In-state players like outside hitter Whitney Verduin, a 2006 Stockton graduate who attended Hawthorne High School in Passaic County, helped give Stockton credibility, too. Verduin, a 2013 inductee into the Stockton Athletics Hall of Fame and the first volleyball player to ever be inducted, was also a standout student, who maintained a 3.75 GPA as a Business Studies major.

Kate Hahn, a Sewell native and Washington Township High School grad, who played for Stockton from 2002-2005, maintained a 3.94 GPA as a biochemistry and molecular biology major. “Both Whitney and Kate are examples of the true spirit of Division III athletics, of both academics and athletics going hand-in-hand,” Illjes said previously.

Then, Stockton made the decision to make the head volleyball coach position full time. Current Coach Allison Walker was hired in 2006.  Walker's younger sister (Whitney Verduin) played volleyball for four years and is in the Stockton Athletics Hall of Fame. Also, Coach Walker herself played against Stockton in college at Muhlenberg College.

Walker said it was her sister who encouraged her to apply for the coaching job. “She was a senior, she’d finished her eligibility. She let me know that the coach was leaving and said ‘you should apply.’ Now we’re both Ospreys,” Walker said.

Walker, the winningest coach in program history, has coached Stockton to a 392-145 record, 10 of those 12 NCAA Tournament appearances (including eight consecutive appearances from 2008-15), and 11 league titles in her 16 years at the helm. Walker has coached the program to five of its six wins in NCAA postseason play.

In her first season, Walker, who is in the Muhlenberg Athletic Hall of Fame for her volleyball play, led the Ospreys to the NJAC championship and an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. Stockton finished 26-9 and Walker was named the NJAC Coach of the Year.

“I definitely attribute a lot of it to team culture,” Walker said of their winning record. “Kids who decide to come to this program have to buy into everything it’s all about. It goes beyond just stepping onto the floor and playing, it’s taking all the responsibilities that come along with being a part of the program.”

Those responsibilities include the strength and conditioning program and taking the time to get to know each other off the court.

“Understanding each other’s differences and respecting each other’s differences makes us better as a unit,” Walker said, “ our being willing to buy into the whole program, the desire to be competitive and successful and not accepting less.”

Langan agrees that recruiting goes beyond just winning games.

“We always figured if we could get a top recruit to come to Stockton for an overnight visit with the team, that Stockton would be the place to come play. Because our players have been nice over the years. They watch out for each other…They ended up being lifetime friends. It doesn't happen at every college. We have been very lucky because of the caliber of individuals who came to Stockton to play.”

The program reached its pinnacle in 2015 as Stockton won its eighth consecutive NJAC championship and was chosen to host an NCAA Tournament regional bracket for the first time ever. Playing on their home court, the Ospreys swept Gallaudet 3-0 in the first round and then advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time in the program’s history with a thrilling 3-2 upset of #16 Eastern University in the second round. That win tied the school record of 32 victories that was set by Sue Newcomb’s 1996 team.

In Spring 2021, Stockton went 7-0 and won the NJAC championship in a season shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic and Walker earned her seventh NJAC Coach of the Year award, her second straight. That season followed a 31-4 record in 2019 when Stockton won 23 straight matches, advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament and was a victory shy of tying the school record for wins. 

Former Stockton player Emily Sullivan, the NJAC Player of the Year a year ago in her final season, joined former player Stephanie Warner (2009-2012) as the only two Osprey volleyball players to earn four NJAC first team honors. 

Walker said she has seen the sport evolve during her time at Stockton.

“I run a travel club program for high school aged students. When I started it 15 years ago in this area, there was not a lot of volleyball. Certainly, in the past couple of years and since I’ve been coaching at Stockton, volleyball is popping up in schools all over the place down here now. The sport is definitely evolving. I think New Jersey as a whole was behind a lot of other states when it comes to volleyball. We’re kind of playing catch up now and it’s making the state stronger with volleyball.”