Golden Hurricane to Host Tulsa Volleyball Invitational This Weekend

MATCH 10:
Tulsa (7-2) vs. New Mexico State (6-3)
11:00 a.m. CT - Friday, Sept. 19, 2025
Donald W. Reynolds Center (8,355) • Tulsa, Okla.

MATCH 11:
Tulsa (7-2) vs. Oral Roberts (0-8)
7:00 p.m. CT - Friday, Sept. 19, 2025
Donald W. Reynolds Center (8,355) • Tulsa, Okla.

MATCH 12:
Tulsa (7-2) vs. Little Rock (3-6)
7:00 p.m. CT - Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025
Donald W. Reynolds Center (8,355) • Tulsa, Okla.

LIVE STATS: Tulsa StatBroadcast
TV (Tulsa Matches Only): ESPN+
GAME NOTES: Tulsa
GAME NOTES: New Mexico State
GAME NOTES: Oral Roberts
GAME NOTES: Little Rock

THE COACHES:
Tulsa: Lauren Ramatowski (Kansas State, 2010), 3^rd year
Career Record: 43-28
School Record: Same

New Mexico State: Mike Jordan (Phoenix, 2001), 28^th year
Career Record: 591-255
School Record: Same

Oral Roberts: Nolan Albrecht (Belmont Abbey, 2015), 1^st year
Career Record: 13-18 (2^nd year overall)
School Record: 0-8

Little Rock: Van Compton (Arkansas State, 1966), 38^th year
Career Record: 662-598 (46^th year overall)
School Record: 590-519

The Tulsa Volleyball Invitational

The Golden Hurricane enters home action on a seven-match win streak as they take on New Mexico State, Oral Roberts and Little Rock in the annual Tulsa Volleyball Invitational.
TU plays NMSU (11 a.m.) and ORU (7 p.m.) on Friday, and will wrap up the event against Little Rock on Saturday night at 7 p.m.
All Tulsa matches will be streamed on ESPN+. The non-Tulsa matches will not be streamed anywhere.

Tournament Schedule (All Times Central)
Friday, September 19
Tulsa vs New Mexico State – 11 a.m.
New Mexico State vs Little Rock – 4 p.m.
Tulsa vs Oral Roberts – 7 p.m.

Saturday, September 20
Oral Roberts vs New Mexico State – 11 a.m.
Oral Roberts vs Little Rock – 4 p.m.
Tulsa vs Little Rock – 7 p.m.

Home Match Promotions This Week

Tulsa's match with New Mexico State will be the Golden Hurricane's Education Day Match. TU has invited hundreds of students and teachers from local Tulsa Public Schools to cheer on the volleyball team.
The ORU match will be another notch in the Mayor's Cup series between the two volleyball programs. The first 150 fans to arrive can pick up a free "Tulsa's Team" T-Shirt upon entry.

Welcome to Season 50 of Tulsa Volleyball

2025 marks the 50th season of Golden Hurricane volleyball at The University of Tulsa.
Since 1976, Tulsa has played in 1,597 matches in the program's history, winning 779 in total.
221 different student-athletes have donned the Royal Blue and Old Gold since the program's founding.
TU volleyball players have earned 54 all-conference awards, 15 All-America honors and four Academic All-Americas while winning six overall conference titles and qualifying for eight postseasons (4 NCAA, 4 NIVC).

Scouting the New Mexico State Aggies

This will be just the second meeting between Tulsa and New Mexico State.
The Aggies won the first meeting 3-2 in their home tournament in 1997.
New Mexico State is off to a 6-3 start, supplemented by wins in three of their last four matches over Kansas City and New Haven.
Last year, the Aggies went 19-14, finishing as runners up in the Conference USA Championship.

Measuring up the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles

Friday marks the 85th Mayor's Cup match between the Tulsa and Oral Roberts volleyball teams.
ORU leads the series 56-28, but Tulsa has won the last 15 matches in a row dating back to 2008. ORU's last win in the series came on September 4, 2008, when the Golden Eagles escaped 3-2 on their home court.
Oral Roberts is looking for their first win of the season still after starting 0-8, winning only two sets so far.
ORU went 4-25 last year and finished 2-14 in Summit League action.

Facing the Little Rock Trojans

Saturday's contest will be the fifth meeting in the all-time series.
Little Rock leads the series 3-1 after winning the first three contests, the first of which was in 1986. TU won the last match in 2009, 3-0.
The Trojans have started their season with a 3-6 record with wins over East Texas A&M, Providence and Northwestern State.
Last season, Little Rock went 16-16 and exited the OVC Championship quarterfinal round.

National and Conference Stat Rankings

After three weekends of action, here's where Tulsa stacks up on the individual and team level in the American and the national stat rankings.
True freshman middle Jill Hanson leads the American with a .376 hitting percentage. She peaked with .889 (8-0-9) against Cleveland State and has hit over .500 three times this season.
Senior setter Brayden Hipp averages 9.38 assists (3rd) and owns 300 total assists (4th), both of which rank top five in the league.
Sophomore setter Brittany Bacorn has come in to boost Tulsa's serve. She ranks 5th in the conference for services aces (0.41/set).
Junior libero Lauren Patterson remains in the conference's top 10 for digs with 3.78 per set (6th).
As a team, Tulsa ranks top three in the league for assists (12.97), hitting percentage (.261) and kills (13.88).
Tulsa is 28th in the country for assists per set (12.97) and 49th for digs (15.41).

Tulsa Thriving on Balanced Attack

Tulsa has four players currently averaging 2-3 kills per set. Any one of them can lead the team in kills for any given match.
Leading is senior outside Lauren Eitler with 2.97 per set followed by senior outside Beth Bayless at 2.84.
Junior outside Olivia Vance is third at 2.61 per set with senior middle Kat Cooper managing 2.41 kills per set.
Freshman middle Jill Hanson is close with 1.84 kills per set.
Much of this is due to brilliant passing by senior setter Brayden Hipp, who's been distributing the ball evenly through three weeks of play.

Tulsa Goes 3-0 at Wooo Pig Invitational

Tulsa's coming off a strong weekend in Arkansas, where the Golden Hurricane produced convincing wins over Cal Poly, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Oklahoma was receiving votes in last week's national top-25 rankings.
TU dominated Cal Poly with a .357 hitting percentage, led by .500+ showings by Olivia Vance (.591), Jill Hanson (.571) and Lauren Eitler (.500), with Vance leading the way with 15 kills to only two errors on 22 total attacks.
Oklahoma's nine service aces were not enough to overcome Tulsa's balanced attack, highlighted by a .341 hitting percentage in the second set. Former Sooner Beth Bayless paved the way with 11 kills and 2 aces.
The Golden Hurricane have now won two in a row over the Razorbacks. Three TU players finished in double-digits for kills thanks to a monster performance by setter Brayden Hipp, who recorded a career-best 45 assists to go with eight digs, three kills, two aces and two blocks.

Brayden Hipp Tabbed Preseason All-Conference

Tulsa senior Brayden Hipp has been selected as one of 16 American Preseason All-Conference volleyball players.
The Preseason Coaches' Poll also designated the Golden Hurricane to finish sixth out of the 13 teams.
Hipp has improved in every season she's played for Tulsa. She's coming off a junior campaign where, as TU's go-to setter, she averaged 6.45 assists and 2.89 digs per set.
She had a double-double in 17 of 29 matches played and finished with 17 20+ assist matches, seven 30+ assist contests and 17 double-figure dig showings.
Hipp enters her fourth and final season at TU with two American Conference Setter of the Week awards, one American Weekly Honorable Mention and two American All-Academic Team selections.
In her career, she has averages of 3.79 assists (1,210), 2.37 digs (756) and 0.15 aces (47) … Has 22 double-doubles, 33 double-figure dig matches and 29 contests with 20+ assists.

Returning for Tulsa

Tulsa returns four letterwinners, including three veteran starters from last year's roster entering their senior seasons. They are outside hitters Beth Bayless and Lauren Eitler and setter Brayden Hipp. Sophomore setter Brittany Bacorn rounds out the returners on the 2025 roster.
These four players account for 23.6% of total points, 22.2% of kills, 83% of assists, 46.2% of digs and 19.3% of blocks returning from last year.

On the Roster

TU returns three of seven starters and four of 12 letterwinners.

Returning starters include senior hitters Beth Bayless and Lauren Eitler and senior setter Brayden Hipp.
The fourth and final returning letterwinner is sophomore setter Brittany Bacorn.
The Golden Hurricane welcomes four transfer players to the roster in 2025. The TU coaching staff hit the transfer portal this offseason and signed San Diego State senior middle Kat Cooper (Springdale, Ark.), James Madison outside junior Olivia Vance (Bixby, Okla.), Loyola Marymount senior libero Lauren Patterson (Portland, Ore.) and Iowa Western Community College junior libero Quinn Swofford (Branson, Mo.).
The six true freshmen ready to don the Blue and Gold for the first time this year are setter Meg Goodwin (Tulsa, Okla.), middle blocker Jill Hanson (San Antonio, Texas), libero Milee Jackson (Tulsa, Okla.) and hitters Kylee McCoy (Royse City, Texas), Maegan Mills (Topeka, Kan.) and Ava Steffe (Frisco, Texas).

2025 Tickets
Single-game tickets are now on sale for $13 per ticket per match for ages 4 and older and can be purchased in advance at TulsaHurricane.com or at the entrance. Season tickets also start at just $50. Season ticket members will receive 1 (one) membership card per ticket that they order that will be good for all 2025 TU Volleyball regular-season home matches in the Donald W. Reynolds Center. No refunds for canceled games due to weather-related or any other cause. CLICK HERE to start the process of ordering tickets or call 918-631-4688.

Ball Kid Signups
The Tulsa volleyball team is looking for ball kids for the 2025 season. Ball kids and one accompanying parent or guardian will receive free admission for games they sign up for. Ball kids will retrieve balls that go out of bounds on the sidelines for the entire game and provide a fresh ball for servers. Only ages 10-12 are allowed to participate. Individual and group signups will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis. Sign up by clicking HERE.

Visit www.TulsaHurricane.com for the latest news and information on the volleyball program. Fans can also follow the team on X, Facebook and Instagram.

Golden Hurricane to Host Tulsa Volleyball Invitational This Weekend

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Brittany Bacorn

Beth Bayless

Kat Cooper

Lauren Eitler

Jill Hanson

Brayden Hipp

Milee Jackson

Kylee McCoy

Lauren Patterson

Ava Steffe

Quinn Swofford

Olivia Vance

Golden Hurricane to Host Tulsa Volleyball Invitational This Weekend

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Brittany Bacorn

Beth Bayless

Kat Cooper

Lauren Eitler

Jill Hanson

Brayden Hipp

Milee Jackson

Kylee McCoy

Lauren Patterson

Ava Steffe

Quinn Swofford

Olivia Vance

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