BIG TEN VOLLEYBALL MEDIA DAYS

August 3, 2026

Leslie Gabriel

Katy Wessels

Julia Hunt

Washington Huskies

Press Conference

LESLIE GABRIEL: First of all, I just want to say thank you to the Big Ten office for putting together just another outstanding volleyball media day. It's always a great opportunity to connect with everyone as we get ready for another exciting season.

It's an honor to be here representing the University of Washington as we begin the 2026 season in what we believe is the premier volleyball conference in this country.

The past three seasons haven't produced the results we expect at Washington. Our standards have always been to compete at the highest level, and we know we haven't consistently met that standard.

We don't make excuses, and we don't spend much time looking backwards. Instead, we've taken the lessons from those seasons and used them to help shape where we're going.

We're excited about this opportunity that this season presents. Our roster is almost evenly split between returning players and newcomers, which has created a fresh energy and enthusiasm in our gym. We have seven returning players and eight newcomers, including two transfers who joined us in January, and six freshmen who arrived this summer.

What has encouraged me most isn't just the talent on the roster, it's the way this team has approached the offseason. Our focus has been on developing the daily habits that championship teams are built on. We challenged our players to be intentional with their nutrition, recovery, sleep, strength training and conditioning. I'm proud with the way that they've embraced those challenges and reached the goal they set for themselves, putting themselves in a position to begin the season healthy, strong and prepared.

On the court, we have emphasized curiosity and growth this offseason. We wanted our players to become problem solvers, to embrace challenge, identify areas for improvement and develop confidence in their ability to make adjustments.

I believe that mindset has led to meaningful individual growth while helping us become a more connected team.

And just as important, we've invested in building relationships. Trust isn't built overnight and neither is a great team. We've spent a great deal of time getting to know one another, strengthening our relationships and creating an environment where our players can challenge, support and compete for each other every day.

Our returning group provides valuable experience. Two of them are sitting up here with me, Julia and Katy. There's also Simona Mateska, an outside hitter, who played a lot for us. We also had two players who came off the bench returning.

Combined with the excitement and talent of our newcomers, we believe we have a group that is eager to learn, eager to compete and eager to continue growing together. We're still writing our story, but I genuinely believe this team is hungry. They've invested in the work. They've embraced the process and they've committed themselves to becoming the best version of Washington volleyball.

We're excited for the challenge of competing in the Big Ten season, and we're looking forward to seeing how this group continues to grow.

Q. You were a long-time assistant coach. Also a player. But how has that experience as a long-time assistant coach become a head coach, and how does that carry over to what you're doing now?

LESLIE GABRIEL: Coaching is coaching. We're helping these players develop. When you're the head coach, you now just take on more responsibilities and you're in charge of making sure that those things are happening in the gym, you know, in our program with all the different things that are going on.

Just so just the experience of being able to learn from the other coaches I've been under have been valuable. You know, I think Jim McLaughlin and Keegan Cook. And so I've learned a lot from those guys.

Then for me, just being able to in these last three years to be able to learn my style and what it means to hold these guys accountable and what that looks like. So for me, I'm growing and learning in that space. But, yeah, all that time before this is invaluable.

Q. How is the transition going and what do you see from them in the early days of practices?

LESLIE GABRIEL: Andy -- we call her Fabi, but she's been a great addition. She's coming from the University of San Francisco. She's originally from the Czech Republic and comes from a family of volleyball players. Both her mom and dad and brother plays.

But she's done a great job coming in in January, learning our system of play, but most importantly, getting connected with her teammates that she's going to have to play with.

But she's been a great addition, and she's doing a really good job learning our offense and working with our players.

Q. (Off microphone)?

LESLIE GABRIEL: Then we have Lily Mae, a freshman. I'll tell you, she's coming in fighting. She wants to play. She has dreams, and so it's just both those two are coming in and they're doing a really nice job. It's going to be a nice battle within our setters.

But they're doing a good job learning our offense and setting our hitters. It's been a lot of fun in our gym the last two days, especially.

Q. These two players beside you, what makes them such a potent tandem at the net defensively, and what have you seen from having them work together?

LESLIE GABRIEL: There's one thing when you watch them play, they play with a lot of passion and they're super competitive. That's why I think they have such an impact on the game is because they push each other so hard in practice that when games come, they're able to play at a high level.

But I would say their competitiveness, but also, most importantly, is how they show up. They're one of the hardest workers in our gym. They give everything that they have to the team and they're a great example of that every single day and why they're here. They're good representatives of our program.

Q. How do you feel like you push each other and complement each other as well?

KATY WESSELS: I feel that Julia and I have different ways that we play the game. We've talked about it within each other very much, where Julia's better in the hitting department than I am and I'm better in the blocking department. So I feel like that's the way that we challenge each other is we go towards each other if I ever need help with attacking, I always go to Julia. And she's there for me. She's there to support me.

And we just want to see each other succeed so bad that that energy just feeds off of each other and just makes us such better players.

JULIA HUNT: Yeah, I agree with Katy, just in the blocking aspect she's really good. Number one blocker in the Big Ten, so I look up to her in that aspect.

Then we just bounce ideas off each other. So it's, like, hey, I think this shot's open. She's, like, no, this defender's going this way, like, you should take this shot. And being in the same position and kind of living together, being best friends has really helped us grow our connection, which helps us on the volleyball court, too.

Q. Both of you grew up with athletic families. How does that translate into your game, because obviously you probably didn't just play volleyball growing up with these athletic families. So what does that do to help you all around on the volleyball court?

JULIA HUNT: It helps so much. I would encourage everybody to play multiple sports as long as you can. I played basketball all the way up into my senior year until I couldn't anymore. It really translates, like, on a slide I shoot layups in basketball but on a slide and it really helps me get up there.

Blocking, I used to block all the time in basketball and now I can translate it to volleyball.

And then my siblings, like, in the backyard or in the gym all the time. Just always being competitive really pushed myself and pushes them constantly which is really helpful when competing against other people.

KATY WESSELS: Yeah, then growing up, obviously I played a lot of different sports. I played three sports in high school. I just feel like, just like Julia said, I played basketball and I also did track. So all of that I feel like translates over to the volleyball aspect -- a layup or all the running you need to do, like, I did track.

My brother is a really good cross country runner, and as kids we would just be thrown into the same Boys & Girls Club sports so we would always challenge each other. And I think that's where I get my competitive side from is because he was really competitive. Since he was my older brother, I just had to beat him. So I think that's where I got my competitive side from.

Q. Julia, (indiscernible). You mentioned the injury. What did you learn bouncing back from that?

JULIA HUNT: I really learned just a lot from myself personally. I realized there's a lot more to the mental side than I thought. And you never think it's going to happen to you until it does.

But really just leaning on my teammates helped me a lot, which was awesome. I love them like my own family. So they were super supportive, and just learning that I'm still at UW, you know I still have my abilities just because I had a minor setback doesn't mean I can't push forward.

Q. (Off microphone)

KATY WESSELS: I think the opportunity is amazing. Of course I've given it a lot of thought. But I mean, you never know what's going to happen. All I want to do is this year.

I love UW. This is my home. This year I just want to give it my all because I came into this year thinking it was my last year, and that's still how I'm thinking, because you never know what's going to happen. I'm just going into this year giving it my all. I want this to be my year. And then what happens after, happens.

Q. (Off microphone)

JULIA HUNT: Honestly it's really hard to pick one. They're all different positions. They're all really hard hitters, good blockers. They all have this sort of hunger that I've never seen before in our gym. I feel like they're just ready to play, ready to compete.

We have a standard and they want to meet it already, and it's, I don't know, week one. I've never seen anything like them before. They're a different beast. It's really exciting to see.

I don't think I could pick a specific person. And they just bounce of each other and they can bounce off returners and the transfers and all those people.

KATY WESSELS: This group of freshmen is definitely something special. They come in and they want to play, and they're not, they just want to learn from us older girls. That's all they want to do.

And we have some really heavy hitters. I think Sammy Destler has a really whippy arm on her that you wouldn't expect. I think she's one to look forward to. Kaitlyn Nguyen, I think I'm excited for her because she's an amazing libero obviously.

But all of them -- Hayden Conner, Lily Mae, Rian Stephan -- they're all amazing volleyball players, and I'm just really excited to see what they can do throughout their career here.

LESLIE GABRIEL: There's not too much I would say different than kind of what Katy and Julia touched on, but they are a special group. They've come in from day one and are playing some really good volleyball and pushing the gym, which is what you always are asking the players to do.

They want to play, and they're showing us what they can do. And, so, we have some really nice competitive battles that are going on in each position.

Kind of like Katy says, Sammy has a really fast, whippy arm, so she can find the floor pretty fast and then is scoring a lot right now in our gym, which has been exciting.

Kiley Kleckner is a great ball controller. She does a great job passing and keeping the ball off the floor and is doing a nice job there. She's learning the pace of our offense.

Lily Mae, like I talked about earlier, with the setting battle. She's learning our offense fast, and sometimes learning how to set a facet takes some time, especially with new hitters. She's just been able to step in. And sometimes as a freshman, it's just easy to do because you don't know any better. You're just out there doing the work.

Then there's Hayden Conner, who is just a stable middle for us right now. She's learning how to block. That's one thing she told me. I've got to learn some eye work, and I was like yep, and you will, just keep working hard and it will come. You've got two middles right now in your position to learn from.

And Kaitlyn Nguyen is another one, Washington player, libero. You've seen her name in the U.S.A. pipeline, but she has a real nice touch off of her arm when she passes and digs.

I think and then Rian Stephan, who is an opposite, learning the game, but she's battling, and so here are these girls that want to play, who want to help our program win games, and it's fun.

We also have the other two transfers, Andy, who I talked about setting, someone that has been here since January, working with us. She's doing a really nice job setting our team since she's been here in January.

And then Addie Kanouff, from Texas Tech, she brings in some great length. She's 6-5 and someone that we'll need to help us slow down our opponents. It's been a fun two or three days of practice, as everyone is getting back in and playing volleyball. It's been fun. We've got to get home. Our flight was delayed. Come on, Alaska Airlines, figure it out.

Q. What is your take on the 5-for-5? How does that impact the roster building discussions you're having looking out into the future and your scholarship and roster spot allocation for the next few years?

LESLIE GABRIEL: Yeah, 5-for-5 gives opportunity, opportunities to our players to play one more year of college sports. These are the best years of your life. We're giving them another opportunity for them to do it.

I would love for all my girls to take a fifth year if it's in their plans. With pro in the states and pro overseas, that's also enticing to some of them. So those are discussions we'll continue to have as we go. But I would love for all of my players to stay for a fifth year and play. Just to have that extra year of experience is invaluable to a program.