BIG TEN VOLLEYBALL MEDIA DAYS

August 3, 2026

Kristen Kelsay

Ky Clayton

Karolina Staniszewska

Michigan State Spartans

Press Conference

KRISTEN KELSAY: A lot of gratitude for all of you being here for putting on this media days. It's first class. We're grateful to not only be part of the Big Ten but to be here representing women's volleyball. Thank you all for being here and sharing our stories.

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions.

Q. (No microphone.)

KRISTEN KELSAY: How much time do you have (smiling)?

It was probably the most challenging and also most gratifying year of my life. I learned the depth of the relationship that you can have as a head coach with these young women, the impact you can make. I loved being an assistant. I wanted to be an assistant, was an assistant for a long time, and loved that role. Was worried going into a head coaching role if that would change.

It did change, right? Now I'm on the other side of the table. But I realized the depth and impact was so much greater I could have on these young women.

I learned a lot about leadership. I learned a lot about managing people, right? I have a staff of seven, and 19 young women. I got to take care of 19 hearts and manage a staff of seven. So learning how to lead people and lead with our values, honestly we had a great year. It was the best year since 2017 which was that Elite Eight run.

I'm most proud of the people and the foundation we laid with our values. That's what's going to propel Michigan State to where we want to go. That was the most important to me in year one, that we get it right with our people and how we do it, that it was pretty exciting to see the wins come with it.

Q. You took part in the Big Ten Life Series. In Oregon you participated in Selma. How did this environment teach you something new and how did it differ in terms of getting that learning opportunity from two different regions of the country?

KY CLAYTON: Big Life was super cool. Not very often you get to meet athletes in a casual setting. Super cool to learn about history and how it can tie into who we are now.

I met a lot of cool people and we did a lot of cool things. Those are for sure memories I will never forget. Just another kudos to the Big Ten for putting on something like that.

Q. (No microphone.)

KRISTEN KELSAY: Yeah, I think I really had no expectations last year. I told the media, I told our team, I'm not going to put a ceiling on you. Where we were picked like 16th last year to finish in the Big Ten was not going to be where we were going to finish. We ended up finishing tied for 10th.

Like I said, our mission for Michigan State volleyball is to be a winning program, and that is in percentages and people. So that's our mission, and how we do that is through our values. But our mission is that we're going to win, but we're going to win with our people and with how we do this, with integrity and our values and then with percentages.

So, yes, we had a winning program. But we know that to say we are a winning program is to go back to post-season play. One of the things we talked about in our first meeting last week is this season has five chapters. We can't worry about chapter five until we read chapter one. Chapter one is pre-season training. We can't worry about our non-conference opening or the Big Ten tournament or NCAA tournament until we work very hard this first chapter.

Then non-conference, which sets the stage for the rest of the chapters. If we're only worried about post-season, we have to crush non-conference, which is huge step forward in terms of quality of opponent and RPI from last year.

We're so excited for the opportunity to compete for a Big Ten tournament. But we can't worry about the Big Ten tournament unless we win enough games in the Big Ten season, which ultimately will get us to play December volleyball in the NCAA.

This year everyone's going through this for the first time. This will be my 15th season playing and coaching in the Big Ten. This is the first time that every single one of us is navigating the season where you play everybody once, you've got a Big Ten tournament.

So now more than ever it's going to be important that I lead these young women in staying present because if all we're focused about is going back to the NCAA tournament since 2017 -- you hear that a lot -- we're going to miss all of the moments in between that are going to lead us there.

Q. Coach, your excitement about the Big Ten tournament, to have that as something to work toward, what this means?

KRISTEN KELSAY: I mean, the Big Ten, I always say I'm a little biased. I've only been in the Big Ten as a player, assistant, now head coach. It's the most elite conference in college volleyball.

So now to have this platform where we get to put all of these teams, 15 Big Ten teams in one place from an attendance standpoint, from a quality-of-play standpoint, from a national television, having it nationally televised, we are excited. Even in our Big Ten head coaches call, we are ready, our teams is ready, the Big Ten is ready, the country is ready for a Big Ten tournament.

That is absolutely one of our goals, to make that, then keep going through the post-season.

Q. Players, how might that change things this season, your level of excitement, to have the post-season tournament?

KAROLINA STANISZEWSKA: It's obviously something new, and nobody ever done that in Big Ten. I think as a player we very excited to finally, like, take a next step into the play in Big Ten and have another chance to qualify for NCAA tournament, which is something amazing. It's something that I definitely look forward to.

KY CLAYTON: Yeah, I think it's super cool. It's just another opportunity to compete and show off skills. We're really looking forward to it.

Q. (No microphone.)

KRISTEN KELSAY: Yeah, I talked to the whole team about it when it happened. I said anything like this, anytime we add a player to our roster or there's a big change in the NCAA, I always want you to hear it from me, how this impacts you.

We had a team meeting about it, and then I had individual player dinners over at my house, or team dinners by class this summer. We talked about how it would affect every class. The freshmen, it affects them differently. Some of them redshirted, which we know changes, right, and what their five-year plan academically looks like. Then we had the conversations with our seniors.

We said we're not going to make December decisions in June. A lot is going to play out through the season. We've already had multiple conversations about what this looks like for our senior class, our 2027 class. We're going to keep those lines of communication open because there's a lot of conditions and a lot of variables that will affect these young women's future, right?

So making that decision at the end of the season is, in our opinion, the best time to do that for them to stay present, like we talked about in our chapters, staying present and having this potential final season, then deciding what's best for their future, what's best for their career, what's best for their playing career.

We're really excited about the opportunity, but also really trying to stay present. Hey, these are our seniors now, this is how we're going to honor and recognize them. When the time comes, we'll make decisions moving forward.

Q. (No microphone.)

KAROLINA STANISZEWSKA: Yeah, it's definitely something we're going to think about. Like as Coach said, we're going to make the decision in December, kind of looking how the season goes.

I think it's very exciting to have this opportunity to do it over again in the fifth year, yeah.

KY CLAYTON: Yeah, I think it's very exciting, but we have a lot of seniors this year. A lot of them are very different people. We have people through all walks of life. Like Coach said, we're not going to make December decisions in June because a lot could change between then. We'll change as people. We'll change as a team.

We're just going through our chapters and supporting each other as best as we can. When we get to December, we get to December.

Q. (No microphone.)

KAROLINA STANISZEWSKA: I would say confidence as a team. Obviously we all, like, practice and grow together for the past eight months. We want to find our own language which we all going to speak, find our flow in the team that is kind of going to help us throughout the season.

On top of that, confidence. Obviously it's something that each team needs, finding the roles that each player is going to have throughout the season.

KY CLAYTON: I think for me personally, leadership also as a team, we graduated our two captains, our two biggest leaders last year. Just stepping up, whether that's a captain, leadership council, smaller ways. I think as a team as a whole and individually leadership was something we all stepped up in the spring.

KRISTEN KELSAY: I will tell you Ky was our summer leader, and she crushed it. She rose to that challenge.

Q. (No microphone.)

KRISTEN KELSAY: One thing we're really passionate about, I don't know if it's underrated, but probably it's not your serve-pass ratio, it's not your hitting percentage, your error percentage. We talk a lot about our out-of-system setting.

We track how often our out-of-system setting is located in the box where we want it to be. In the Big Ten, you have to apply pressure, get a swing. So we have a technical coordinator who puts together not only a visual chart of where the set was, and then on the floor of that chart what happened. You see all the sets that were wide, half of them are errors. All the sets that were off, half of them are kills for the other team.

That's one thing that is unique, we're really passionate every day, we work on out-of-system setting, so we can take swings and apply pressure in the toughest conference in the country.

Q. Coach, you've been able to add to your roster effectively through the portal, first-year players, can you tell how the new faces are settling in, how excited you are about the returning veterans and newcomers?

KRISTEN KELSAY: We're fired up. I would say we added really perfect pieces to complement our roster. We added four athletes in January, two of those were transfers, two of them were incoming freshmen, then we added two pieces over the summer. We have quite a bit of new faces and people who will add to our roster, who will see playing time this fall.

Like Ky and Karolina said earlier, we have a returning bunch. Almost every starter returns from last year. We graduated one starter in Evie Doezema. We're really excited about the success that this team had last year and how we can add some physicality, how we can add a little bit more depth to our roster in order to go through a tougher non-conference, then a Big Ten season.

Q. Several players on the roster this year who can be legitimate six rotation point scoring threats. Do you feel you have the flexibility to expand your attack this year?

KRISTEN KELSAY: Yeah, one thing we worked on a lot this spring was our back row attack, our big attack and having different routes based on where the middle goes. Every pin that we have can pass. That's a privilege for us. Even the pins that we added are two freshmen, Madi and Colbie, and Alanna Bankston from Louisville, they can pass. They can all hit back row.

It's been fun to add that layer to our offense, something you didn't see until late in the season last year with Bianca moving to the opposite. Now we have these guys flying out of the back row on a lot of different routes. That's been a fun addition to our offensive weapon.

We updated our offense a little bit this spring. That was a big rock for us this spring, was the speed, tempo and set location of our offense. They did a great job.

We came in day one and played three sets to see how we're doing. They did a great job over the summer of maintaining that, getting the newcomers up to speed.

Q. (No microphone.)

KY CLAYTON: Yeah, it will definitely be a little bit strange. But luckily it's close to home, so we'll hopefully have a ton of Spartan fans there. Hopefully we'll feel like a home match even if we're not playing against Michigan.

KAROLINA STANISZEWSKA: I mean, it's very exciting, especially since it's our Senior Night day. Obviously playing against Michigan is always a huge game for us. We have great fans. The whole stadium is full of people supporting us. So definitely it's such a fun game that we all look forward to play it.

Q. Coach, such a strong start last year. What did you learn over year one in terms of the longevity it takes to finish out a season in the Big Ten?

KRISTEN KELSAY: Yeah, we always talk about it's a marathon not a sprint, right? I'm really fortunate. We have a sports scientist who works with -- is at every practice, works directly with volleyball. Even right now we're planning our pre-season based on our load ramp-up. So week one versus what percentage of that is our load of a typical in season. That's something I lean on, especially as a newer head coach, very heavily to protect their bodies and to get us to play December volleyball.

We talk a lot, we didn't have the November last year we wanted to have. Compound interest, what we did in January gives us a better November. What we did in the summer when coaches weren't able to be there gives us an opportunity to have a better November. How I take care of their bodies, how we train now, allows us to peak at the right time where we can finish stronger this year than last year.

We went 10-0 in non-conference. It was super exciting. It was really confidence building, as Karolina talked. I want to show this team how to win, how you can respond to that. Then walked into the Big Ten and saw a little different level of physicality. Our non-conference this year looks a little bit different. We're going to see some of that physicality earlier, which will be a good challenge for us leading into the Big Ten season.

Q. (No microphone.)

KY CLAYTON: I think just the people she's added to this program. We talk a lot about wanting to be a winning program, but we can't do that without our people. Not only Kristen as our head coach, but our support staff. We have a lot of returning players, but the people she has brought into this program are just so special.

Yes, they raise the level of volleyball, but they also raise the level of our program as a whole and our Spartan family. I think that's probably the biggest thing she's brought to this program.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you all for being here.