Sault College serving up return of women's volleyball

After announcing the addition of football to its varsity athletics program in late-November, Sault College is hoping to ace its latest addition as well.

The post-secondary institution announced Tuesday afternoon that women's volleyball is the latest sport to be added to the college’s varsity athletics offerings.

The addition of varsity volleyball will be for the 2025-26 school year and will compete in the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association.

“Given the resurgence of women’s volleyball in our community and a relatively new gymnasium facility we have on campus and the desire to create more opportunities for female athletes, the decision to reintroduce volleyball to our lineup made a great deal of sense,” said Paul Orazietti, Sault College's director of athletics and student experience.

Orazietti also said that adding women’s volleyball keeps with the school’s goal “to go deep into the sports that have great community support and an abundance of grassroots talent.”

Orazietti referenced the successes of club volleyball locally through the Steel City Ignite and 705 Volleyball Academy.

Much like adding the football program, Orazietti said adding women’s volleyball comes with the hope that the team can be competitive out of the gate like the current programs have been of late.

“One of my goals in the athletics department has been to create sports that we can be relevant in,” Orazietti said. “Varsity-level, it’s about creating meaningful and competitive programs.”

The idea of adding volleyball to the current varsity athletics lineup goes back two to three years.

Orazietti said that when the school made the decision to step back from varsity basketball “we were left with a facility that was top notch and no varsity team,” adding that club volleyball rentals in the gym have been abundant.

“It makes a lot of sense to capitalize on something where there’s those really deep roots,” Orazietti said.

With an anticipated roster size around 15 players, the goal will be much like the football program in building the roster around local players and then adding players from outside the region.

For a coaching staff, Orazietti said he feels the process could be “fairly quick."

“We have a few great candidates,” he said. “We’re working on that piece, but ultimately my goal for that program would be to have them pull it together so we can start to look at exhibition play.”

With the women’s volleyball program set along the same timeline as the football program to begin play, Orazietti said the good news for the school is that the start dates are over a year away.

“We have a long runway,” Orazietti said. “We have a year-and-a-half here for both programs, which is ideal. The recruitment piece is always the most challenging piece.”

The school last had a women's volleyball team in 2011.