Retention (2025)

As we are on the final week of not playing volleyball, it means that it’s time for the Roster Roundup where I take a look at the current published rosters and figure out who each team really lost since last season. Yes, I’ve done the statistics loss articles but that is based on graduating seniors. This picks up the rest and gives us a more complete picture. The players that graduated early, transferred, were injured and those that simply felt volleyball wasn’t their path any longer. I call this Retention and this is really the first time in a long time where things have calmed down. You see, there were very few Super Seniors this year and very few teams that actually improved since graduation. One goal with this article has always been to highlight program stability and question where there is a lot of turnover. We really haven’t been able to do this the last few years. With that said, you also can’t take these statistics at face value. Coaching changes impact these numbers a lot and early graduation (which should be celebrated) will look bad here. I will also note here that I’ve added the C2C and SAA schools to our Roundup. Again, welcome to the West.

I always start off with the schools that have yet to publish even though matches start on Friday. This year we are left with only Lewis & Clark who make the Roster Roundup Hall of Shame (noted at the bottom of the article). This marks the 4^th time where the Pios haven’t released their roster prior to this article going out moving them into the lead in this dubious honor with 4 offenses. I will say that I made the extra effort of reaching out to the delinquent SIDs and coaches so really no excuse for Lewis & Clark this year.

Let’s first look at retention and the schools that retained their entire eligible squad. They are George Fox, Pacific Lutheran, Berry, Centre, Millsaps, Rhodes, Sewanee, Colorado College, Hendrix, Chapman, CMS, Occidental and Pomona-Pitzer. These are the schools that only lost their graduating seniors and there is definitely a lot more this year than last. (Kudos to Chapman and Pomona-Pitzer for going back-to-back! Teams that hit the 85% mark are Christopher Newport, Hardin-Simmons, Pacific, Puget Sound, Trinity and Schreiner.

Here is my list of schools that have had perfect retention since 2018*:

* C2C and SAA schools since 2024

Berry 2024 Centre 2024 Chapman 2023, 2024 Colorado College 2018, 2024 Cal Lutheran 2018 CMS 2018, 2022, 2024 George Fox 2018, 2024 Hendrix 2024 Millsaps 2024 Occidental 2024 Pacific Lutheran 2019, 2024 Pomona-Pitzer 2018, 2023, 2024 Redlands 2018 Rhodes 2024 Schreiner 2023 Sewanee 2024 St Thomas 2019, 2022 Southwestern 2021 Whitman 2021, 2022

Pomona-Pitzer and CMS join the 3-Time Club and lead the pack. I will say that the SAA schools performed very well with retention so we could see them take the lead in a few years. Only Oglethorpe (84.6%) didn’t achieve 100% for those in the SAA or leaving that conference this season.

This year we had four programs that retained 60% or less. One was Dallas and we have some good news and bad news for that program. The bad is that they only retained 29.4% of their eligible players while the good is that then no longer own the record for worst retention. That record, unfortunately, now belongs to Centenary who retained only 13.3%. (It should be pointed out that Dallas has a new coach and that often leads to low retention numbers either the first or second season in charge. Centenary’s coach is in her second season.) The other two schools are Warren Wilson and Texas Lutheran. TLU is a strange one for this list so I’m assuming they had some early graduates. Back to Centenary and the two players they kept didn’t contribute points so their Points Lost is 100%! They are truly starting over. (I’m slightly in disbelief about this but I didn’t want to go back and check my numbers.)

Before we look at the statistics, I always like looking over the roster sizes and the recruiting class. The largest roster usually comes down to Puget Sound and Austin College and this year the honor goes to Linfield with 27. This breaks Puget Sounds streak of leading two years in a row. Tied for second was Millsaps and Austin College. Puget Sound came in fourth at 25 rostered players. Rounding out the Top 5 was Concordia at 25. Other programs with 20 or more were Mary Hardin-Baylor, Centre, Trinity, Hendrix, McMurry, Schreiner, St Thomas, Cal Lutheran, Chapman, La Verne, Occidental, Pomona-Pitzer, Redlands and Whittier.

The smallest roster this year will be Centenary with 11 players. You can see how they lost so many players because they were at 20 the season before. Behind Centenary is a tie between Willamette and Caltech at 14 players. Both of these schools typically have smaller rosters.

The school with the most seniors departing was Mary Washington with 9, which is quite a lot for one season. A number of schools had 7 seniors departing.

The schools with double-digit first-years on the squad are Ozarks (14), Austin College (13), Millsaps (11) and Mary Washington (10). The largest recruiting classes (including transfers) were Ozarks (19), Austin College (15) and Linfield (12). The smallest recruiting class was a tie between Warren Wilson and Puget Sound at 2. Behind them were Hardin-Simmons and Rhodes at 3. The largest number of transfers (or non-first years) went to La Verne with 6 student-athletes. There were four schools with 5. It should be pointed out that Ozarks is starting their program up from scratch so every single rostered player is new this season.

One other number I like to look at is Returners. A large number here means a lot of consistency is coming back, which means the coaching staff doesn’t have to rehash a lot and that they really know what they have in the squad. Last year the leaders were Puget Sound and Colorado College. This year it’s Puget Sound again with 23. That’s a crazy high number of returners. Next highest was Hendrix with 18.

Alright, let’s get to statistics loss factoring in these players that have left the squad. With the Super Seniors the past 3 years, we’ve really seen a number of schools actually improve their losses due to graduation because their seniors wouldn’t leave. This year that number drops down to just two (Hardin-Simmons and Puget Sound). Each had a senior return for another season as they had athletic eligibility left.

Here is the full table of schools sorted by their new statistics loss (returners percentage is also included):

So, as you can see, most every team has a new statistics loss number. If we go back to the 45% rule-of-thumb for statistics loss, then trouble lurks for top programs like TLU, Whittier and ETBU. Each of these were below that threshold prior to examining their official 2025 rosters.

That does it for my last annual article. The NWC should release their preview later today with the SAA releasing on Thursday. After that, it’s all about the Match Day.

Time for the Hall of Shame as we add another entry for Lewis & Clark. Any team since 2018 that didn’t get their roster done in time is noted below.

Cal Lutheran: 2018

Chapman: 2021

Dallas: 2023

Howard Payne: 2019, 2021

La Verne: 2018

Lewis & Clark: 2018, 2019, 2021, 2025

Linfield: 2018, 2021

Occidental: 2021

Pacific: 2018, 2019, 2021

Pacific Lutheran: 2018, 2021

Redlands: 2018, 2019, 2024

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