Two words are written on the left sleeve of each Evergreen State College volleyball player’s jersey and on a poster above the scorer’s table at the Costantino Recreation Center gymnasium.
Dig Deep.
The Evergreen volleyball team has spent a considerable amount of time since the spring to embody that slogan not just on the court but primarily off the court. The Geoducks are coming off of a 4-20 season in 2025, a win total that was doubled by the retroactive vacation of Walla Walla’s victories due to the use of an ineligible player.
In head coach Carissa Bounds’ first three seasons as the leader of the Evergreen volleyball program, she and her coaching staff have often passed on life lessons to their team. Yet when things on the volleyball court turned pear-shaped, the Geoducks stumbled to claw back and often put their heads down.
This past spring, Bounds and her coaching staff sought to find a spark for their team. They chose to unite the Geoducks through reading Jon Gordon’s book “The Power of a Positive Team” and a book about the Buddhism teachings of mudita, which relates to selflessness and vicarious joy for others’ successes.
“It’s something that we’ve struggled with throughout games is the consistent energy and consistent positivity on the court,” Bounds said. “The second that things would start getting hard, we would get down. In reading [Gordon’s] book, it gives you tools that will help you stay positive. It talks about ‘energy vampires’ and accountability. All of us are on the bus to go to the same thing. This year, we want milestones. We’re all on the bus to reach the next milestone, whether that’s more matches going to four or five sets or the big goal everyone has of making it to the postseason.”
The Geoducks have been more bought into the goal of the program than ever through the book club, as well as additional team meetings and team-bonding activities. In limited competition opportunities, the results have shown signs of new life.
In the spring, Evergreen competed against Division II Saint Martin’s with only seven players and managed to steal a set from the Saints, sending the team’s confidence skyrocketing. The Geoducks opened the 2026 fall campaign with a Tuesday scrimmage against Edmonds College in which they crawled back from a 2-0 deficit to force a fifth set before the Tritons secured the win in the final stanza.
It may have just been a scrimmage that won’t count in the final standings, but Evergreen never forced even a fourth set after losing the first two last season. The Geoducks were swept in all 20 of their losses, and they were even swept in their two matchups with Walla Walla before those wins were forfeited.
“Resilience was a massive thing. In past years, we’ve crumbled under that pressure of having to come back from a 2-0 deficit. That’s really difficult,” Bounds said. “Today, they had that fire and that grit to be able to make it into the fifth set. That’s a total shift in anything that we did last year.”
Evergreen will be led in 2026 by a returning core of senior opposite hitter/middle blocker Sophia Scroggins and junior middle blocker/outside hitter Zosia Formella. Formella led the Geoducks in kills in 2025 with 144 and service aces with 15. Scroggins, a River Ridge High School graduate, was right behind Formella in kills with 138, and she also recorded 139 digs and 16 blocks. In her time at Evergreen, Scroggins has played every position except setter.
Setter Jayden Vaimaona is back for her senior season after pacing Evergreen with 198 assists last fall, and she’ll be joined by Texas A&M-Texarkana transfer Riley Mangan, who came from a beach volleyball program. The two split time at the setter spot during Tuesday’s scrimmage.
Mikayla Kelly, a powerful middle blocker, returns for a second season with Evergreen following a transfer from Whitman College. Junior Bright Brubaker was a key piece off the bench in 2025 and should see an increased role as an opposite hitter. Sophomore liberos Jaci Yamada and Rosario Olvera both bring a steady presence anchoring the defense. Freshmen Aubrie Coots and Annalise Orlowski flashed in the front row in the opening scrimmage, as well.
The biggest difference between the team’s culture this fall and last fall has been the universal desire to be part of the team and to win, Scroggins said.
“There’s a lot of new buy-in. You really have to buy into everything we do as a team. We’re doing a lot of things together,” she added. “We do our chores together. We’re eating lunch together. Everything off the court affects what we do on the court, too. You have to be connected. Everyone wants to be here right now. That hasn’t been the case in the past.”
Evergreen last qualified for the Cascade Collegiate Conference Tournament in 2022 when it finished with a 14-13 record but has gone 12-64 since. The Geoducks know that their offseason transformation won’t be wasted on the court, and they believe they can shock some people in the CCC, where they’re ranked 10th in the preseason poll out of 11 teams.
“This year, we’re really trying to turn the culture around. We’re having a lot of team meetings and team building, and we’re having conversations about what our culture is going to be,” Formella said. “I think our newcomers are locking into that, and they’re coming in strong.”
Evergreen will travel to Wichita, Kansas, this weekend for the Friends Invitational, where the Geoducks will face Peru State College and Friends University on Friday and then Oklahoma Panhandle State University and MidAmerica Nazarene University on Saturday.
“That will be a really good gauge on seeing people that are at the same caliber as us and getting to see teams that we’ve never played before,” Bounds said. “That’s really exciting. Having those preseason tournaments also gives us an opportunity to learn more about each other and bond a little bit more. It’s so great to have a full roster who is on the same page. They bought into our culture before they even committed, before they were even on campus. They bought into what I believed in, and I think that is a huge difference on why the girls are so together.”
Evergreen will be tested immediately upon the start of the regular season on Friday, Sept. 4 when top-ranked Eastern Oregon comes to Evergreen in a CCC matchup.
To view the full 2026 Evergreen volleyball schedule, visit gogeoducks.com.
