LUBBOCK, Texas (Aug. 26, 2026) – Tyler Neal did not need long to recognize what he had inherited.
 
Taking over the Lubbock Christian University volleyball program following the most successful NCAA-era season in program history meant Neal entered his first season as head coach with an unusual combination. There was change at the top, seven newcomers joining the roster and a new coaching philosophy being installed, but there was also something already firmly established inside the program.
 
Winning!
 
LCU enters the 2026 season following a 25-8 campaign in which the Lady Chaparrals went 15-2 in Lone Star Conference play, captured the program's first LSC regular-season championship and made its first NCAA Division II Tournament appearance.
 
As Neal prepared to put his imprint on the program, he discovered a returning group that did not view those achievements merely as memories from the previous season. They had learned what winning required and, perhaps more importantly, had developed an expectation for it.
 
"It was just really the character of the athletes that I noticed right off the bat and their desire and ability to compete really well," Neal said. "That was evident from day one in the spring and that was one of the things that, when I asked the team what they wanted to keep from last year's team, keep going was just their, I guess you would say, winning mentality. I think winning is a habit. Losing can also become a habit, and so that was something that I felt like was ingrained in them coming into this program. Winning became a habit for them last season, and that's something we for sure wanted to continue."
 
The opportunity to continue it arrives Friday. LCU opens the 2026 season at 10 a.m. CT against New Mexico Highlands in the Virginia Harris/Jeanie Miller Invitational, hosted by Western Colorado inside Paul Wright Gym in Gunnison, Colorado.
 
When the Lady Chaps take the floor, the roster will look different from the one that completed LCU's breakthrough 2025 campaign. But 10 players return, and with them comes something Neal cannot install through a drill or draw onto a whiteboard — experience winning meaningful matches.
 
"It really was a blessing to have a core group of returners that has experienced winning a conference championship and playing in the NCAA tournament," Neal said. "There is great momentum heading into this season. And there's belief that, 'hey, we can be a really good team and we can beat other really good teams. We can go far in the conference tournament and then into the NCAA tournament and really just build upon hopefully what happened last year and try and go even farther.'"
 
Sears Returns to Direct the Offense
Perhaps no returning player embodies that combination of experience and opportunity more than Camdyn Sears.
 
Sears' freshman season produced one of the most decorated individual campaigns in program history. The Midland, Texas, native earned AVCA All-America Honorable Mention and AVCA All-Region Honorable Mention recognition while becoming the first player in LSC history to earn both Setter of the Year and Freshman of the Year honors in the same season. She was also a First Team All-LSC selection and earned LSC Championship All-Tournament Team honors.
 
Her production matched the accolades. Sears ranked seventh nationally with 1,309 assists, the second-highest single-season total of LCU's rally-scoring era and the 10th-highest total in program history. She helped direct an offense that led the LSC in assists per set and kills per set while producing 23 double-doubles of her own. She finished the year with 385 digs, 89 kills, 29 blocks and 12 service aces and recorded 39 assists and 11 digs in LCU's NCAA Tournament debut.
 
Now, Neal believes the next step for Sears may involve something less measurable than assists or awards: comfort.
 
"Camdyn is just a very special player," Neal said. "She is a phenomenal athlete, and she makes some plays on the volleyball court where you're just kind of wondering, 'How did she do that?' Just from sheer athleticism and grit and hustle and desire. But, she also is just the consummate leader. She's calm and cool, but plays with joy and loves her teammates well and is incredibly encouraging."
 
Sears had to navigate all of that while experiencing college volleyball for the first time. The setter who entered last season as a freshman now begins her sophomore year having already quarterbacked a conference championship team through 33 matches and into the NCAA postseason.
 
"I would hope heading into her second collegiate season, she would just feel a lot more comfortable out on the court, a little bit more familiar with what college volleyball is and the demands of it, the expectations of being a setter," Neal said. "You're kind of the quarterback for the team, and so I would hope that she would be able to experience more fun and joy and peace in her role this year than I think she did as a freshman, where everything was just new and coming at her at such a fast pace. I hope she would just settle in and just allow her gifts and talents to just be on full display even more as she leads our team."
 
Workman's Versatility Adds Another Veteran Piece
While Sears returns after directing the offense, Jade Workman enters 2026 having already demonstrated how many different ways she can impact it. Workman was limited by injury to 16 matches as a freshman in 2024 before becoming a significant piece of LCU's championship season a year later.
 
She appeared in 32 matches in 2025 and produced 226 kills, 102 assists, 128 digs, 62 blocks, eight service aces and 266 points. Her versatility was particularly evident in an offense in which she could contribute as both an attacker and a distributor. Workman recorded a season-high 23 assists against Southwestern Oklahoma State and twice produced a season-high 14 kills, doing so at St. Mary's and St. Edward's. Those performances helped her earn LSC Offensive Player of the Week honors Oct. 7.
 
For Neal, Workman's value extends beyond any single statistical category. "Jade is just a really great all-around player," Neal said. "She's extremely strong fundamentally in all areas, and so I just think that consistency is really what our team is going to need throughout this season. Somebody who can do it all, can serve, can pass, can attack on both pins, can play great defense, whether that's blocking or in the back row."
 
That versatility also showed itself during Neal's first extended opportunity to work with the returning roster.
 
"We saw that in the spring," Neal said. "She was just very consistent, and just the way she plays, she just plays with a lot of confidence and just a lot of volleyball IQ and a lot of savvy. And so hopefully just that experience from last year, just being an upperclassman now, a veteran, can just add to our team's confidence as she gets more confident throughout the year."
 
Experience Goes Beyond the Headliners
Sears and Workman may provide two prominent pieces, but LCU's returning experience stretches throughout the roster.
 
Ramsey Clark enters her fourth season with the program after appearing in all 33 matches last season. She ranked 19th in the LSC with 321 digs, reached double figures in digs 16 times and led LCU with 29 service aces. She enters 2026 with 665 career digs through 85 collegiate matches.
 
Kyla Farnan also brings veteran experience after appearing in 29 matches during her first season at LCU. The former Saint Michael's College libero recorded 134 digs and 16 service aces in 2025 after previously leading Saint Michael's with 399 digs and 50 aces in 2024.

Together with Sears, Clark and Farnan give LCU several experienced pieces in the serve-receive and defensive portions of the game.
 
There is returning production at the net as well.
 
Camryn Blair produced 140 kills in 24 matches last season and recorded a career-high 18 kills against CSU Pueblo. Tatum Fleitman added 38 kills in 12 appearances after playing in 25 matches and recording 123 kills and 38 blocks as a sophomore in 2024.
 
Sienna Cavalier gained experience in 18 matches during an injury-affected freshman season, collecting 107 digs while recording a season-high 14 against Southwestern Oklahoma State and Western New Mexico.
 
Kat Dulin, Hope Gonsioroski and Aubree Lundberg also return for their sophomore seasons after receiving limited opportunities as freshmen. For Neal, the significance of that group is not simply that those players return. It is what they have done with the opportunity between seasons.
 
"These other returners that saw some playing time last year, I think they're hungry," Neal said. "They're hungry for their shot to compete for starting roles and earn starting roles and really contribute even more than they did last year. Camryn, Tatum, Sienna, Kat and Hope, they just worked tremendously hard in the offseason to prepare for this season. There's just been tremendous competition in our gym already from them."
 
Their importance has also extended to the seven players joining the roster for the first time.
 
"They've done a great job just kind of setting the tone for our freshmen and transfers that have come into the program about how we do things around here, what the expectations are for how we're going to compete in practice and make each other better, and how we're going to also just love each other really well and be just great teammates," Neal said. "So I look forward to just a lot of contributions from all these athletes."
 
A New System Without Starting Over
That existing foundation has presented Neal and assistant coach Levi Savage with an important preseason balance. A coaching change naturally brings a different system and different expectations, but Neal has not approached the transition by forcing the returning roster to become something it is not. Instead, the opening weeks of preseason have involved learning what his players already do well and determining how those abilities fit within the structure he and Savage want to establish.
 
"You certainly want to build your team around the talent of your players and our system around the talent of our players for what's going to work best for our players," Neal said. "Certainly, the first two weeks of practice have been about discovering who can do what and what each player's strengths are. At the same time, (we are) trying to see how the puzzle pieces fit together to form a cohesive team."
 
There are principles Neal and Savage consider important to the way LCU will play. Within those principles, however, Neal wants room for individuality.
 
"Coach Savage and I have some really strong convictions about some things that are important for us for how we're going to play team-wise," Neal said. "But the great thing about the system that we run is it does allow for individual athletes to display their skills and be as creative as they need to be and just really play free within the boundaries that we have in place for them. I'd say it's just a little bit of both. And hopefully we can find the right mix of the talents that we have and then the system that we want to run to make their talent shine."
 
That same balance has existed away from the tactical side of volleyball.
 
When Neal arrived in February, he inherited players with established relationships and an established team culture. Before deciding what needed to change, he wanted to understand what the players believed should remain. What he heard aligned closely with what he wanted LCU volleyball to represent.
 
"Several of them have been very instrumental in helping us learn what's good and then what needs to change," Neal said. "One of the things that we really heard from them was they have a Christ-centered culture and they love each other really well. Those were the things that were really important to them that they were going to keep. That has been great because those are the things that we wanted to have as well."
 
The result has been less about replacing one culture with another and more about joining the established strengths of the program with the philosophy of a new staff.
 
"It's been a process of them learning our philosophy and then us learning where they're coming from and then combining both of those things together to provide a good foundation moving forward when it comes to culture," Neal said. "But that was really one of the best things that we noticed when we got here, was that the culture, especially amongst the athletes on the team, was really-really strong. They loved each other really well, had strong relationships and really supported each other and had a lot of trust. That was really something that we could build upon and enhance and bring out even more of."
 
Battle-Tested Before Another Test
The returning experience could become especially valuable immediately.
 
LCU does not ease into its season.
 
The Lady Chaps begin in Colorado, later travel to Florida and will face four first-time opponents as part of a schedule containing 17 conference matches. LCU will spend the opening four weekends away from home before playing its first match inside the Rip Griffin Center on Sept. 25.
 
For a new coaching staff, that means learning while competing, and for the returners, it means drawing on lessons from a season filled with high-pressure matches.
 
"I think we're going to have to, with our schedule this year, rely on what the girls learned from last year and previous years, while learning on the fly a little bit ourselves as a new coaching staff," Neal said. "But I think, from what I understand from last year's team, this team is just really battle-tested. They played a lot of tough matches and a lot of very close competitive matches.  I don't think anything's really going to surprise them."
 
The extended time on the road may have another purpose as Neal works to blend 10 returners and seven newcomers into one team.
 
"We're going to use this preseason as an opportunity to build some team camaraderie, build some team spirit, and also build some toughness and some grittiness, going on the road for about four straight weekends before we come home on September 25th for our first home match," Neal said. "I think it'll definitely make us stronger, and it'll be great for us to just become a really strong team."
 
Looking Through the Windshield
There is an inherent challenge when a program experiences something for the first time. LCU's first LSC regular-season championship and NCAA Tournament appearance permanently changed what the 2025 team accomplished.
 
The question for 2026 is whether those accomplishments become a destination or a starting point.
 
Neal's answer has been to keep his players facing forward.
 
"I think last year's success is something that I think we just build upon," Neal said. "I don't think it's something that we look back on and look in the past. We're not looking in the rear-view mirror, we're looking forward to the future. What's really been the mentality of this team is, 'OK, what's ahead of us? What can we accomplish? And where are the areas that we can continue to grow so that we can maximize the capabilities of this team?'"
 
That distinction matters because, despite the returning experience, Neal knows this is not the same team.
 
"Last year's team was very successful, but it was a different team," Neal said. "This year, this team has the opportunity to create its own identity and to do its own thing, which would include hopefully having a similar, if not even more levels of success."
 
Statistically, there are meaningful pieces of the championship season still in place. LCU's 10 returning players accounted for 1,460 of the team's 1,676 assists last season, or 87.1%, led overwhelmingly by Sears' 1,309. They also combined for 1,127 of LCU's 2,483 digs, representing 45.4% of the team's total, while returning 498 kills.
 
What those numbers cannot show is how seven newcomers will fit alongside them or which players will emerge through the competition Neal has seen throughout preseason.
 
That uncertainty is part of what has him encouraged.
 
"Looking at the composition of this team, the returners and the newcomers, I'm really just excited about the depth that we have on this roster," Neal said. "We have really strong competition for every position right now in the gym. That's really exciting…  the depth and talent that's on our roster. I really think 'the sky's the limit' when it comes to what this team can achieve."
 
For Neal, realizing that potential will require more than talent.
 
"The key, I think, will be for them all buying into the concept that the team is the star," Neal said. "When you're playing for each other and you're playing for a common goal bigger than yourself, then that's when really amazing things can happen."
 
Honoring the Past, Establishing What Comes Next
Neal's first several months at LCU have therefore involved two processes occurring simultaneously. He has been learning a program that already knows how to win while teaching that program how he wants to lead.
 
The spring provided the bridge.
 
"I think really the spring was instrumental in honoring what the program accomplished this last year and just getting a clear understanding of what was good and what could be improved," Neal said. "As we head into this season, I think we have some clear ideas on, 'hey, here's the direction that we want to head…. Here's the things that I really think are important to me for this team to have.'"
 
Relationships and trust came before the first serve of the fall.
 
"That learning process, building relationships, the foundation of trust that we were able to establish in the spring… I think it has allowed me to be able to say, 'OK, here's where we are, here's where we need to go, and let's all get on board for it,'" Neal said.
 
And when Neal first met the players who would eventually become his first LCU team, he gave them a straightforward picture of what they could expect from him.
 
"Some of the things that I told our team the first time that I met them was that I was going to love them and lead from a standpoint of love," Neal said. "That's, I think, the greatest motivator. That's the Jesus model. They were going to be loved on and off the court. And that's just kind of how my approach to coaching starts. Second, we were just going to try and be really-really excellent at everything that we do and play some great volleyball. Third, we're just going to have a ton of fun. We're going to play with joy."
 
The months of spring practices, offseason work, preseason sessions and scrimmages have brought Neal and his returning players to the point where the transition finally leaves the practice gym.
 
Friday morning, there will be an opponent on the other side of the net and a result attached to the scoreboard. For the 10 players who experienced where LCU went a year ago, it is not an opportunity to recreate 2025.
 
It is the first opportunity to determine where the foundation built in 2025 can take the 2026 Lady Chaparrals.
 
"We're just excited to just start competing together in some real matches," Neal said. "It's been a lot of practice, a lot of scrimmages, but playing some real matches will be just super fun for this team, and so we're excited to get going."