The Oregon Ducks women’s volleyball team is coming off of a tremendous season where they finished No. 6 in the country and made it to the Elite-8 round of the NCAA Tournament. The Ducks are looking to build off of last year with an even stronger season as they enter the Big Ten.

One player everyone should have their eyes on is Junior Mimi Colyer. As a sophomore, Colyer started all 35 games, led the team with 471 kills and averaged 4.43 points per set — which was fourth in the Pac-12. She became the 22nd player in Oregon history to reach 1,000 career kills, and was nominated as an AVCA All-America Honorable Mention, AVCA All-Pacific North Region, All-Pac-12 Team, Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week and Rainbow Wahine Classic MVP.

When asked about her focus on playing good teams at a high level, she replied, “just making sure I rely on the game plan and what we were told to do and do it as good as I could, and with that I found some success.” 

Colyer also said an important part of her game is, “being smart with where I was trying to hit, and being deceptive.”

In the first two games this season, Colyer recorded 23 kills on 54 total attempts and 1 ace. After the Ducks’ season opening loss to Pittsburgh, Colyer said, “a huge thing for us was just our ball control and our serve-receive. I think there was a little bit of nerves. Pitt is also a really good serving team, they’re very consistent, they don’t miss a lot, and we let that get the best of us.” 

As the season progresses, she said, “knowing we pushed a team that’s gonna make it far in the tournament should also be super inspiring for us.”

The Ducks have gotten off to another hot start, largely thanks to Colyer. As they enter Big Ten play, she’ll need to continue to perform at a high level. But, for now, she’s establishing that the program’s recent successes aren’t flukes, but the new standard of a powerful program.