WEST CHESTER, Pa. (Aug. 29, 2026) – The Thomas Jefferson University women's volleyball team opened the 2026 campaign at the PSAC East Kickoff Tournament, hosted by West Chester University, and responded by winning two out of three matches.
Friday Game 1: Jefferson 3, Millersville 0
The Rams kicked off the season by imposing their will on Millersville University, connecting on 15 kills to just two errors in the opening set. From there, they never looked back. Senior outsider hitter
Emily McKenna (Fashion Design Drexel Hill, Pa. / Sacred Heart Academy) set an incredible tone with 21 kills and a kills-error ratio of more than 10:1. She went on to hit .528 over the opening match as the Marauders had no answer for her from the outside.
Friday's first match also served as an opportunity for freshman
Lyllah Sapp (Bakersfield, Calif. / Frontier) to establish herself as the Rams's primary setter. She tallied 35 of the Rams' 43 assists while featuring in all three sets. Another key for Jefferson in the season opener came on serves -- both theirs and Millersville's. Jefferson totaled nine service aces to the Marauders' one, with
Alexa Mork (West Chester, Pa. / West Chester East / Towson University) and
Alexa Pomeroy (Eastvale, Calif. / Pomona Catholic) together accounting for eight of the nine.
Jefferson ran hot early, opening 9-3 in the first set while having to come behind in the third and dig out of a 4-0 hole. However, Jefferson willed themselves back into contention by taking six of the ensuing eight points. Mork was a particular factor over this stretch, earning two of her services aces and one of her seven kills to help the Rams recover, and eventually close the show to move to 1-0.
Friday Game 2: West Virginia State 3, Jefferson 1
Jefferson had a tougher go of it against West Virginia State, a team the Rams couldn't simply bulldoze off the court in straight sets. That did not mean, however, that the Rams didn't find success against a tough Yellow Jackets squad. The first set came down to the final points with junior middle blocker
Pemi Areola (Kingwood, Texas / Kingwood) serving as the early tone setter. Areola had 14 kills to the tune of a .364%, but three of those kills came on the first three points of the match. Hoewever, the Yellow Jackets were able to match the energy early, setting the stage for the Rams to strike back in the second set.
Jefferson hung with West Virginia State throughout the majority of the second frame but turned on the jets late, closing by winning six of the final seven points to even the match. The catalyst of this run proved to be Mork who had two of her 13 kills and put the exclamation point on the set. However, the Yellow Jackets went on to respond with a big third set before pulling a closely contested third set. The match did serve as another opportunity for Sapp to establish herself as a consistent, full-time setter for the Rams. She finished the match with 42 assists and six digs. Sophomore libero
Kate Hines (Newark, Del. / Delaware Military Academy) led with 27 digs.
Saturday: Jefferson 3, Lincoln 0
The final match of the weekend gave the Rams an opportunity to respond, and that they did, handling Lincoln University (Pa.) in a similar fashion to Millersville. This time, the Rams posted a team hitting percentage of .482 as the Lions had few answers. This time, the top Jefferson performer would be Pomeroy who logged four of 10 Jefferson service aces herself and hit a sterling .600 on the match behind 13 kills.
The match served as an opportunity for the Rams to put their depth on full display. Starting libero Hines had more assists (7) than she had digs (6), while setter Sapp had 21 assists in two sets before giving way to junior
Danni Fuller (Collegeville, Pa. / Spring-Ford) and sophomore
Meredith Adams (Eau Claire, Wis. / Eau Claire Memorial) in the third. Eight different players finished points for Jefferson, and no player had more than two errors over the dominant three-set win (25-6, 25-12, 25-11).
Head Coach
Eric Schaefer and the Rams will host their own tournament over Labor Day Weekend: The inaugural Jefferson Invitational. The Rams will play four games between Sept. 4 and Sept. 5, beginning with a 10 a.m. tilt with St. Thomas Aquinas College.
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