{"id":122683,"date":"2026-01-14T10:40:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/122683\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T10:40:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:40:35","slug":"did-longhorns-sign-any-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/122683\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Longhorns sign any players?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although more than 600 Division I volleyball players have entered the transfer portal this offseason, none have joined Texas volleyball<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And no one likely will anytime soon, based on the\u00a0NCAA schedule.<\/p>\n

The portal closed Jan. 5, and starting middle blocker Ayden Ames<\/a> and reserve outside hitter Whitney Lauenstein<\/a> are the only Longhorns who entered it. Although Texas coach Jerritt Elliott<\/a> and his staff can still sign players that have already submitted their names into the portal, it\u2019s unlikely that a player will join for the spring semester, considering that classes started this week and spring enrollment at Texas ends Jan. 20.<\/p>\n

That means Texas has 14 players slated for its spring roster, including three class of 2026 signees: setter\u00a0Genevieve Harris, libero Emma Cugino<\/a> and outside hitter Henley Anderson<\/a>. Elliott will have up to four available roster spots for the 2026 season if he chooses to sign a player after the spring semester.<\/p>\n

But will the Longhorns sign any players? They welcome back nine rotation players from a team that went 26-4 and fell to Wisconsin<\/a> in a regional championship, including All-American outside hitters in Torrey Stafford<\/a> and Cari Spears<\/a>. However, they have to replace two regular starters in\u00a0libero Emma Halter<\/a> and Ames.<\/p>\n

Ramsey Gary<\/a> served as a defensive specialist this past season, but expect her to inherit the libero jersey from Halter. Before transferring to Texas prior to last season, Gary emerged as an All-Big Ten libero at Indiana.<\/p>\n

If Gary takes over as libero, veteran Anja Kujund\u017ei\u0107 and Cugino will likely serve as rotational players on the back row.<\/p>\n

Texas only has two players \u2014 Nya Bunton and Taylor Harvey \u2014 listed as middle blockers on its roster, but 6-foot-4 freshman outside hitter Addy Gaido<\/a> has cross-trained at the position. The Georgetown High School product will likely see action at middle in the spring as Elliott explores his options in the rotation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although more than 600 Division I volleyball players have entered the transfer portal this offseason, none have joined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2237,23774,46466,27,29,537,1074,28,3774],"class_list":["post-122683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-college-volleyball","tag-jerritt-elliott","tag-ncaa-transfer-portal","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-longhorns-volleyball","tag-texas-news","tag-transfer-portal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}