CEDAR CITY, UTAH -- The 2026 Women's Volleyball season is fast approaching, and the Thunderbirds are looking to take a step forward under second-year head coach Danielle Jensen as they navigate a return to the Big Sky Conference.

Every good volleyball team needs to be able to play defense in order to set up their offensive plays, and Coach Jensen is confident in her defense's ability and mentality to both absorb pressure from opposing offenses and to set up opportunities for the offense to attack.

"We will be extremely tough defensively," Coach Jensen said of her squad. "We know what we've got coming at us, and we've got to be able to stop that in order to generate something on our side."

As defensive specialists, liberos play a critical role in those two goals, and the T-Birds have three players in competition to win the starting role. Amanda Mendoza is one of 2 players on the team returning from last season with the Thunderbirds, and Coach Jensen says that her experience at the Division I level and her knowledge of the system at SUU are strengths that serve her well in that battle. 

"Amanda knows the system really well," Jensen said of the sophomore from El Paso, TX, and continuing about Mendoza's experience in Division I, "That obviously helps, no matter who it is, to be able to play a little bit, and just to know what to expect."

Despite the advantages Mendoza enjoys as a returning player, transfers Zorana Stankovska and Kaitlyn Barnes are making sure coaches have no easy decision on their hands when it comes to naming a starter.

"There's some really good competition with the three of them," Coach Jensen elaborated when asked about the position battle, "Z and Kaitlyn were both here in the spring, and so they got an idea of how things work, and they know how I run things. So all three have got to come in and work hard."

Despite no clear frontrunner at the moment, the hard work of all three liberos on the squad is ensuring this team has a defense ready to make its mark in every match this upcoming season.

Liberos: Zorana Stankovska - 5'5, Jr. Kaitlyn Barnes - 5'10, Jr., Amanda Mendoza - 5'5, So.

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