The Texas A&M Men’s Club Volleyball team is no stranger to competition having won 24 conference championships and been reigning conference champion for the past nine years.
While men’s volleyball isn’t as popular as football in Texas, most teams can’t boast those kinds of championship stats. A&M men’s volleyball plays in the Southern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association Conference, or SIVA, and will be hosting its next home game on Oct. 22.
Sophomore outside hitter Hutka said this fall will be his first full year on the team.
“[The volleyball team] reached out to me,” Hutka said. “As I was deciding to come here for academics, I had the opportunity to play collegiately, but just thought I would pursue my academics first.”
Coming from a small town without a men’s volleyball team, Hutka said he decided to pursue volleyball after watching matches his junior and senior year of high school. He joined a club team in Austin, the Austin Juniors, and said the team helped him gain attention as a player.
Hutka said that there is Division I men’s volleyball, but not in Texas due to the smaller men’s volleyball demographic in the state. There are 25 teams listed on the 2022 SIVA roster.
“We won the Southern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association conference final last year and for the last nine years [A&M] were conference winners,” Hutka said.
Sophomore setter and right side hitter Blasingame, said he is playing his first semester on the team this year.
“I feel pretty good,” Blasingame said. “It’s definitely an adjustment, having to manage my schedule a lot better, but I think we have a really good team.”
Men’s volleyball isn’t a “talked about sport” in Texas, Blasingame said.
“People on the west coast play on the beach, which we don’t have as much here,” he explained. “Volleyball is seen as a women’s sport. The fall is our time to get out all our mistakes, but in the spring we have a good shot at nationals.”
Senior middle blocker Eliot Stein said he is heading into his second year with the team. Throughout his time playing, Stein said his favorite memory has been winning all the tournaments.
“In this semester probably second in SIVA, and then in the spring we will win pretty easily,” said Stein. The team is scheduled to play a preseason conference tournament in November, according to SIVA.com.
A&M Men’s Club Volleyball is hosting a non-conference tournament on Oct. 22nd. Other schools such as Texas Tech, University of Texas, and Baylor will be joining. Admission is free and the team will play in the Main Student Rec Center. Follow the team on @TAMUMensVolleyball on Instagram.
“It will be in front of our friends and family, which is fun,” Stein said. “We’re hoping we will win just cause it is our home court.”
Jessi Morrison is a sophomore general studies major and contributed this piece from the course JOUR 359, Reporting Sports, to The Battalion.