Volleyball is a team sport, yes. It requires six players to act as a single-celled organism, each simultaneously reacting to the ball's path and the locations of their teammates and opponents. Furthermore, it requires this computation at perhaps the fastest speed of any sport in the world.
But when two teams are evenly matched, the superstars stand out. It often comes down to which team has the best player on the floor.
In No. 11 Oregon’s five-set Sunday matinee win over No. 24 Washington, that player was Mimi Colyer.
That shouldn’t come as a surprise for anyone who has followed Oregon volleyball for the last few years. Colyer has been Oregon’s main kill-getter since Brooke Nuneviller passed her the torch in 2022. On Sunday, the junior outside hitter played one of the best games of her career, slamming home 25 kills and diving for 13 digs — both season highs.
Through her two and a half years as a Duck, she has been the one Oregon has relied on with its back against the wall. That was certainly the case on Sunday. The Ducks fell behind early in four of five sets against a talented Husky team, but they dug deep and rallied behind Colyer when it mattered most. After dropping the second and third sets, Colyer made sure her team forced a deciding set, taking over with nine kills in the fourth.
Oregon head coach Matt Ulmer and his entire squad deserve credit for clawing back from multiple deficits, including a script-flipping 6-0 run in the fifth set to close it out. Despite expressing a desire for more balance, Ulmer praised the way Colyer has been leading the charge.
“If you wanna play the last week of the year, those teams have players that you can just put a ball up to, and it’s not a perfect pass, and they can side you out, or score a point for you,” Ulmer said. “And Mimi is the closest thing we’ve ever had to that.”
Technically speaking, Colyer’s dazzling freshman stat line of 4.2 kills per set and a .265 hit percentage is still her most impressive body of work. But we’ve seen Colyer grow in other ways, most notably as a vocal leader. It was clear that she played a major role in orchestrating the turnaround from losing consecutive sets to winning the final two.
“I think [Washington was] playing very freely and we looked kind of timid and scared,” Colyer said about what the team was discussing in the huddle. “It was just, ‘Okay everyone, just flush it all, we know we’re a good volleyball team, we know who we are, so let’s just get back to what we’re doing, and just make them play out of it.’”
Colyer wants this team to be truly great, not just very good. She has already seen the bright lights of the NCAA tournament regional final twice in two seasons. She and the rest of the program are hungry for more.
A Final Four berth or even a national championship certainly seems possible for the 11th-ranked Oregon Ducks, who advance to 12-2 and 5-1 in Big Ten play with Sunday’s win. Colyer is that safety valve and reliable finisher that any great team has, and hitters Michelle Ohwobete and Noemie Glover join her to form a formidable attack. Setter Cristin Cline is top-20 nationally in assists per set. Plus, a stout middle led by Colby Neal is one of only six NCAA units blocking over three balls per set. This team is complete, and it proved that by going 2-0 this week against two top-25 opponents and former Pac-12 rivals.
The gauntlet of Big Ten play is only beginning, though. Colyer and the Ducks will go on the road next Friday against a Wisconsin team that has won four of the last five conference titles and has not lost a single set in their last five matches. That battle will be live at 5 p.m. on Big Ten Plus.