ALVA, Okla. – The Northwestern Oklahoma State volleyball team opens the 2026 season on the road Friday in Joplin, Missouri against Southwest Baptist and Missouri Southern, as the Rangers look to rebound from last year.

"What you start out doing is you just change kind of the personnel that you fill your team with," said Jon Bingesser, head coach of the Rangers. You change your kind of your recruiting philosophy and, you've got to get some that can handle the ability to play in pressure scenarios and are able to communicate, as well as ones that share a clear vision with what we all want to do as a group."

Northwestern has several new additions this season, with multiple coming from the junior college ranks, such as Kemelly Baez Miecznikoski from Clarendon Community College and Andrea Djordjevic from Garden City Community College. The Rangers also get some experience from Division I in Celia Mbaya, who transferred from LSU New Orleans.

"Celia is one that I'm excited about to come in with some, you know, high-level experience that's a little more than most of our team has seen before," Bingesser said. "It's great when you can bring in players like that who have been at different levels, but have seen the operations from those sides"

The Rangers return four starters from last year, with senior middle Ivanny Blackwood leading the way after being named to the All-GAC honorable mention team after racking up 175 kills last season as well as finishing second for the Rangers in total points with 213.5, giving her an average of 3.05 points per set. Blackwood is not the only impactful returner for the Rangers, as senior Tess De Zanet recorded 187.5 points and 155 kills last season.

"Tess has just looked so strong and powerful this year, and she started making that big transition in the spring, and it has carried over through the summer into fall," Bingesser said. "I'm really excited to watch her and kind of see her, you know, guide and lead this team."

Northwestern received 11th place in the GAC preseason poll, with Harding getting the nod for the preseason pick over Oklahoma Baptist by a three-point margin, giving the Rangers some more fuel for the season.

"We, especially with our transfers, like talking about who the 11th team in their conference was," Bingesser said. "As soon as I brought that kind of analogy up, it kind of opened a lot of eyes to people on our team because every one of our transfers comes from a team that was competing for a conference title, and some of them were competing for a national title. When I say, 'we're the 11th team that's compared to the 11th team from your conference,' it kind of opens their eyes a little bit."

After opening the season in Joplin, the Rangers will head home to take on McPherson on Sept. 1 at 6 p.m. before taking road trips to tournaments in New Mexico and Nebraska. In Nebraska, the Rangers will take on preseason No. 7 Nebraska-Kearney, providing a massive opportunity for Northwestern.

"The coach at Kearney has been there for 27 years and he's made 27 consecutive national tournaments, which is extremely impressive," Bingesser said. "I wanted our girls to kind of see that this is what we need to be if we want to continue with whatever career you had prior to coming to Northwestern. I came from a junior college, and we were competing for a national title. The junior college transfers we have now, they're doing the same thing. I want us all to be able to see what we need to look like in order to match the goals that we already had prior to our Northwestern experience."

Conference play starts on Sept. 8, when the Rangers host East Central at 6 p.m., with Southwestern visiting on Sept. 24 at 6 p.m., and the last home game of the season coming against Oklahoma Baptist on Nov. 3 at 6 p.m.

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