2025 NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

December 21, 2025

Jamie Morrison

Ifenna Cos-Okpalla

Logan Lednicky

Kyndal Stowers

T-Mobile Center

Texas A&M Aggies

Championship Press Conference

Texas A&M - 3

Kentucky - 0

THE MODERATOR: I'd like to welcome the 2025 National Champion Texas A&M Aggies to the stage.

Coach, we'll begin with your opening statement.

JAMIE MORRISON: Yeah, I'm still speechless. The number one thing, and I know I've been saying this the entire NCAA tournament, I'm just proud. We talk a lot about different things within our program. One of the biggest one is responses. To come out the way we did in the first set, be able to turn around and claw our way back, then to find who we are.

Each one of these people on this stage, everybody that's in that locker room, I thought we were uniquely and authentically ourselves after 10-3, whatever it was in that set. It wasn't the first time we've done it. That's the cool thing. We did it against Nebraska. We were down 0-2 against Louisville. We had a really tough path here. We've talked a lot about dealing with hard. This is group is probably the best group I've ever had at that.

For you three, I'm proud of you guys. It's so joyful to see them celebrate in the locker room the hard work they put in.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Kyndal, we talked about earlier this week what would it mean for not only you to win a championship, but Texas A&M as well. What was going through your mind as you're having a moment realizing it?

KYNDAL STOWERS: Literally that. I mean, just like so beyond joyful. I think that's our whole team, and that's what our whole team has been all year also. I feel like the first day we set foot in the gym during fall camp, our team was goofing off at 6 a.m. in the morning in the training room making up some crazy scenarios, having a good time. That's crazy that just came back to me because that's just who our team has been through the thick and thin, through the highs and lows.

Obviously now on the highest mountaintop. That's very much so coming through. That's really all I have. I feel like that's what everybody has.

JAMIE MORRISON: We have an official sorority, by the way (smiling).

KYNDAL STOWERS: It's Aggie volleyball. It's Aggie volleyball is like the hand sign. If you look it up on Instagram, Tatum actually made up an Instagram. It's Tau Alpha Mu, because it spells out TAMU, Texas A&M University.

That got us through fall camp (laughter).

LOGAN LEDNICKY: This is so funny.

KYNDAL STOWERS: This is hilarious.

Q. Logan, you've grown up around this program, been with this program. With that in mind, what does taking this program to this height mean to you?

LOGAN LEDNICKY: I honestly don't know if there's a word for it. I was pretty emotional all day today just knowing that no matter the outcome of this game, it would be my last getting to represent A&M on my chest. Being able to do this with these girls, end with what (holding up the trophy), end like this, I just can't even believe it. It means the world to me.

I'm so happy I get to carry this with me through the rest of my life and remember all the memories with these girls.

Q. Kyndal, can you summarize the journey that you've had over the last year, where you didn't even know where you were with the sport, and now so beyond joyful.

KYNDAL STOWERS: How does one even summarize that?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like I've said this sentence so much in the past week. A year ago today I sat on my couch and watched some good friends of mine actually win this game. Now to be living that is genuinely surreal.

It was a journey, like you said. It was a journey to get here. Good days; bad days. It took this guy sitting next to me believing in me after not playing volleyball for over a year and a half, to take me on his roster and coach me every single day, again, after not playing volleyball for a year and a half. All of these girls trusting me to come in and take that role on from the first day, and just the leadership that they have had through every single day.

I mean, I had bad days, for sure. I hadn't been a college athlete in a long time. Season gets long and I hadn't been through that. They were with me every single day regardless of the highs and lows. The joy I'm feeling in this moment is genuinely is just a testament to everybody around me.

Q. On the last play, you had to show a lot of patience. You were standing there waiting. Can you take me through the way they made that big save, the ball finally came back...

IFENNA COS-OKPALLA: Honestly, I had thought Logan had it. I thought that was going to be it. But, of course, Kentucky is a great team. In such a tight scenario I would expect them to go all out.

Just seeing the free ball coming over, knowing this was our chance to capitalize. We have great defensive players. We knew it would be on the money. I think all three of us were ready to get the ball no matter who got set. It just happened to be me.

I knew if I got the ball, I wanted to put it away, and just celebrate with my team as soon as possible for, honestly, just the great season we've had, the grit that we've shown, the hard work and perseverance this group has specifically put in to be where we are now.

Q. The phrase all tournament long has been 'why not us'. The fans were cheering at one point. That's turned into 'it's us'. How does that feel?

LOGAN LEDNICKY: I have to give a shout-out because they're going to be upset if I don't. My boyfriend and Ava's boyfriend, it was going down 0-2 in the Louisville match. They went up to the concession stand and were like, Okay, we got to figure something out. They had this, like, random epitome just yelling back at each other, Why not us.

We kind of took it and ran with it. We started saying it. Ava and Addi wrote it on their shoe. Now it's on a T-shirt somehow. Shout-out to them.

But, I mean, it's true. It's a testament to the hard work this program has put in all year long, staff, players. That's such a great statement. 'Why not us' has turned into 'it is us'. I think with that dog mentality all season long, all tournament long, we knew it was going to be us.

Q. You've played Kentucky twice this year. Can you tell difficulties playing against them.

LOGAN LEDNICKY: I mean, they're an amazing volleyball team. Like, arguably one of the best outside duos in the country. Knowing you're not going to get a break there is a little tough. Then they're firing front row, back row. Kassie is an amazing setter. We know it's not easy.

I think our staff did a great job of putting together a scouting report of what went not as great the first time around, and ultimately led to our success today.

Q. Ifenna, we talked about earlier in the week your defense. You get these blocks or kills, you walk away like nothing ever happened. Did you smile today after that last one?

IFENNA COS-OKPALLA: Uhm, wait? Which, block or kill or...

Q. Very last point.

IFENNA COS-OKPALLA: Oh, like I said, I figured if I got the ball, I'd put it away. I knew once I got set, I'm putting it away regardless.

Being able to really get fired up. I think I just kept like a pretty calm, cool, stoic demeanor pretty much for the entire tournament because I wanted to be someone that my team could lean on when things got tough.

Then we finally made it to the very end. We were just fighting for so long. We just kept going on runs. The gap just kept increasing so I really could get fired up that we were about to do what we did. So yeah...

Q. It was pretty clear in the first set that they prepared for y'all's attack, especially for the middle. What did y'all see in that perspective? What adjustments did you make? Can you speak to the fact that the block is just so good.

IFENNA COS-OKPALLA: Well, I mean, I obviously want to start with saying that Kentucky is a great team. They're in our conference. They're just kind of that team that you see on the schedule and it's like, That's going to be a tough one.

I think knowing and going back to our loss to them earlier this season, and it's so ironic that the next time we would play them would literally be for a national championship title.

Yeah, I think again, like Logan said earlier, just preparing, getting ready, really paying attention and focusing on the scout, just executing. I mean, we talk about all the time, like, who we want to be as a team, identity-wise personally. I think everything just came together tonight.

They did go on that really big run that first set. I think other teams might have backed down at that point or given the set away. I think like we did in the Louisville match, we did in the Nebraska match. Again, that just speaks to the team's grit and our just not willingness to lose, so...

LOGAN LEDNICKY: I think, like, Maddie Waak being the amazing setter she is created that space for us. Jeff and the plays they run, the scout, everything. There's so much more that goes into it than I think people understand.

Maddie being able to flip the ball around everywhere on the court creating spaces for us, that's a testament to Kentucky adjusting, then us adjusting back. We knew they were going to come out. They're an amazing team. We knew they were going to adjust mid match, whatever.

We adjusted. I don't know, it just obviously ended pretty good, so...

Q. It seems like over this entire run y'all have played with so much joy. How much of an impact did playing with that joy have on this run?

KYNDAL STOWERS: So much. I think even at the beginning of this first set today, we may have lost a little bit of that. I think we were headstrong coming, like we're going to win this game, we're going to take this Natty home. The atmosphere was amazing, having all those people there. The 12th man showed up.

I feel like we kind of lost a little bit of that joy at the beginning. Not that that makes that big of a difference. The second we flipped that switch and found that, Hey, guys, we're here to have fun.

Jamie reminded us of that earlier today and yesterday, and every day leading up to this game of, like, just remember all of our little versions of ourselves and imagine how amazing this opportunity is, taking every bit of it and just have a good time, have fun, enjoy it. You love this sport, go out there and love it on the court as well.

I feel like that just allows us to also trust each other. I think when we're having a good time, like, we're so joyful around each other that we don't ever get at each other. We understand and we trust each other, like, Hey, you missed that one. No, we're good. You got the next one.

I think that joy helps that happen because we're all there to have a good time and love being around each other.

THE MODERATOR: Kyndal, Logan, Ifenna, thanks for your time.

We'll continue with questions for coach.

Q. At 18-12, what did you tell the team in the first set?

JAMIE MORRISON: Is that what it was?

Q. Yes.

JAMIE MORRISON: Yeah, in the first it was 18-12? They were ahead that many points?

Q. Yes.

JAMIE MORRISON: Wow (laughter). Thought it was earlier than that when I called a timeout. Should have called a timeout earlier. That's what I'm learning right now (smiling).

I just said, We've been here before. We've been there twice. I brought up the Louisville match. I talk a lot about, I'm a David Goggins fan. I talk about the cookie jar, of you've got to put all those things away that you've done in the past to make sure you can pull them back out later on.

We talked about Louisville being down 0-2. We talked about Nebraska. We said, Hey, we've been here. What they said. I said we have to go back to enjoying this as we're out there. I just said it's going to take one or two points, start to get firing, they're going to be there.

As soon as we got within two, I was like oh, no, for them, they should know better on this team. This team is not going to back down. I said this during the interview earlier, that's a piece of our identity. We have 'love' and 'grit' written outside of our locker room just because that became a piece of what it was last year.

We've had it over and over and over again. As soon as we started to claw back, I knew something special was about to happen.

Q. Earlier in the week you talked about very matter-of-factly that this program would be here for a long time. Now you have the good foundation with a championship. Is this obviously what you envisioned? You also talked about being authentically yourselves. Where did that show up today? Where did that shift happen?

JAMIE MORRISON: Yeah, the first question, everything we did, we did with people that were here. We did this. Again, college landscape is changing, we did it without the money that other programs had. It was really about development. Our administration, they're here right now in the audience, but I give gratitude every single day that we're going to be a program that can financially compete with anybody as well now.

You add that to the fact that we can develop talent, relationships. One of my favorite things about this weekend is we had three people transfer last year and it was simply because they weren't going to play. We helped them find new homes. All three of them showed up here to support us. That doesn't happen in a lot of places.

We can combine the fact that we care about the people that are part of our program, we can develop the people in our program, and our administration and our school is supporting us.

I have to add this. They announced the lineups at the beginning. All of a sudden they said Kentucky. There was kind of a roar. Then they said Texas A&M and the 12th man showed up. It was at that point I walked in right before. I said, Hey, the 12th man is here to back us up, go get this team. That was a huge piece of it, too.

All of a sudden you have those three things, plus you have a fan base that is rabid now for volleyball, is ignited, really cares about what we're doing. Again, we're going to go make history for a long time to come.

Q. From the moment you were hired, you've been saying that this program would reach this level. Did you honestly think it would happen this quickly? What did it take to get to that point?

JAMIE MORRISON: I think the reason why we're all sitting up here laughing at this is right now we're in disbelief. I could be wrong but I'm guessing this has never happened to take a program from where it was and winning a national championship in three years. That would be the most confident statement I ever would say, Hey, we can get there in three.

When I had a mission and vision, it was five years. What I told them in the locker room, this is a product of hard work. This was a product.

Lexi Guinn on our team, like, I don't remember if it was this year or last year, but we said, Hey, if we go to the tournament, where are we trying to go? I put a survey up and there was one person that said, Win a Natty. And it was last year. She was like, If we're going, why wouldn't we try. This year we put it up, and the thing I put up is: Make Lexi look like a genius.

Again, we had some people devoted for that. Again, they had an idea that it was possible. We talk a lot about alignment, goals, we back them up with, hey, what is it going to take for us to get there.

The thing that's amazing about this team is they lived in alignment with that. No one us going to be perfect. 95% of the time of pushing every single day in practice, of making sure they created relationships amongst their team so that when things get tough, they're not pointing fingers. We're in this together. That's where the grittiness comes from. They did all of the little things that needed to happen whether I was watching or not.

Again, the thing I'm most fired up and the most proud, I'm going to go back in there and look at everybody with their families with a giant smile on their face, is they get to see this. As I said in the locker room, for the rest of their lives, they get to call themselves national champions. I'm going to smile every time I say it because I'm still in a little bit in disbelief.

No, I didn't call it in three years. I was pretty confident. I will say this, I have to give some props to my staff, we sat down about a year and a half ago, just looked at what was happening in other sports. Then we said, Why can't we do this quicker?

At first we had talked about five years. We're like five years, five years. I sat them down and said we're at the tipping point right now. From a recruiting standpoint, development standpoint, I said we can do it sooner. We kind of sat down and really put the pedal to the metal.

The people that I have working with me, like, they are the hardest workers on the planet. Again, I had my staff coming up and saying congratulations to me like I did this alone. I could not have done it without the people that back me up every single day.

Q. You speak about the 12th man, feeling things from the crowd. Sometimes y'all don't feel everything. Energy-wise can you tell me what you and your team have felt from this arena? Now that y'all have gotten the job done, how do y'all think this can energize the campus, maybe a little smack talk with the football program?

JAMIE MORRISON: There won't be smack talk with the football program (smiling).

I'm going to go backwards here. Again, the heartbreaking loss for the football team yesterday. We're happy we could give this to the 12th man. Again, going back to why I think our school can be really good is there's other places where both of those programs aren't great. I got a good text from Mike earlier today after a loss that said, Good luck, we're pulling for you from here.

Mike's wife is not in here. She is there, sorry. Hi. We support each other. It's a really cool thing that I don't think happens at a lot of other universities. When I say, hey, we can be good for a time to come, it's not just us in terms of this things. It's the entire athletic department. I think we have a pretty unique group that's going in there.

I was passionate about that so I forgot the first question.

Q. The energy.

JAMIE MORRISON: Energy in the stands, yeah.

It was different. I think one of the things we did a really good job of is describing what each round would feel like. We talked about the first two rounds when we were at home. It was a home crowd, but we couldn't do some of the things because it has to be unbiased. I disagree with that. I'll say that publicly. I said it when I was at Nebraska. I said, Let Nebraska do what they want. We need to grow our sport. I'm not going to say other stuff, I'll get in trouble.

We talked about that would feel a little bit different. Then we got to Nebraska and we talked about, hey, this first match we're going to play, there's not going to be that many people, but it might get more energetic by the time it gets done. Obviously you're playing Nebraska at Nebraska. That one is going to be energetic.

We talked about while we were here, it's going to be weird because there's going to be, whatever it is, 18,533 people that were here both nights. The first night it felt like people were watching a volleyball match. This night we felt like we were playing a home match.

It was an amazing feeling to have that many people travel. Again, why I'm so fired up to be where I'm at right now because I think we can create a place, and I said this the other night, where people are going to travel to watch us play. I think we can ignite a fan base around the sport of volleyball that they're going to travel to watch volleyball. It happened tonight.

Again, I couldn't be more thankful for the amount of people. I had so many people texting me that they were driving here from College Station. I'm geographically challenged, but I know that's far (smiling). The amount of people that wanted to be here and see this, that added a little bit more pressure for me. You've driving how many hours? We better win this now.

I couldn't be more thankful. Again, I think that's going to continue to grow.

Q. What does it feel like right now to have one of the biggest upsets that we've seen in a long time in women's sports?

JAMIE MORRISON: Yeah, I said this when we were in Nebraska. Again, like there's different pieces of this. We're a really good volleyball team. To me we had one bad weekend this entire year. We went up to SMU, I said it during an ESPN broadcast out here, I thought that changed the tone of our season. It was a wake-up call. We need to dial into things that make us us, we need to hold each other accountable every single day.

I think our RPI system is broken. I don't think our seeding was correct. I think we were probably 5 or 6. I don't think it's been the greatest upset in the history of sport. It was a really good volleyball team that put the work in at the right time of year, cared about each other, decided we were going to go grind. We were not going to back down from everybody.

For us, we don't consider it an upset because we consider ourselves really, really good. We played with a chip on our shoulder to try to prove it to everybody.

Again, those rankings, and I told them last year when this happened and we weren't ranked the entire season, the only one that matters is the one at the end of the year, and we're going to be No. 1.

Q. You had a large group of seniors play their last game for A&M tonight. What does it mean to you to have them go out on top?

JAMIE MORRISON: Actually just talked to Logan. At one point we were four points away from the end of it. I just gave here a high-five and held on for a second. I think she had that moment where this might be the last four points of my college career. I think she actually started getting a little teary on the court. I was like, Oh, no, did I just ruin everything (smiling).

No, it means the world. I've said this. It's going to be a repeat. I mean it. Just it's a mix of people that were here from the very beginning. Again, the first day of practice wasn't easy. Again, I'm not a yeller or screamer, but I'm demanding. I remember I said 'again' 17 times, we were working on something.

They all bought into the way it was going to be, how we were going to work, how we were going to act as teammates, how we were going to care and love each other. Those things weren't easy.

There was a group of them here from the beginning that said I want to be a part of this, I want to build this program. There were a group of them that bought into what it was I said on the phone when we were talking about the vision of what could be.

I think for all of them, I don't think they were envisioning a national championship by the time they were done. I think when we were selling what we were doing, it was building something they could come back to in the future and be really, really proud they helped build.

I think the coolest thing is, again I just gave Ava a hug at the end of this, I remember having a conversation with her at the beginning of the year that like the coolest thing is they weren't here to go win a national championship, they weren't hear to be top 10, it happened at the beginning of this season we were having this conversation, they're here to help build.

It's so amazing to be able to see the fruition of our work now. That was being top 10. They were going to be able to say they came back, for two of them they're generational Aggies. For all of them, they wanted to build something, be a part of something, go out on top with a national championship, I'm just really happy.

Again, when I'm sitting in the locker room just staring off, our staring off in a distance, it's a mixture of disbelief and absolute joy they're getting to see the work they put in pay off.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

JAMIE MORRISON: I just want to say this, too. Our sport is blowing up. As I've been sitting here all week, I've heard people from NPR, ESPN, The Athletic, everywhere.

I want to say thank you guys for caring about our sport. Thank you to the NCAA for putting this on. Thank you to ESPN. I know there was some stuff about the first couple rounds. But I think you are doing it amazingly and you're investing in our sport.

Again, it is amazing, it's beautiful, it's powerful. It's one of the most, I don't know, engaging sports I've ever seen on TV. Please keep investing, keep being around.

Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for being here and caring. I really do appreciate it. And gig 'em.