Oregon Ducks News: Volleyball trips to Bozeman, Bobcats name starter, Gabriel gets it

Oregon football isn't the only Duck sport to begin their season this week. Women's volleyball serves up three matches this weekend, a tournament in Bozeman, Montana, "The Even Hotel Bobcat Invite," squaring off at the net versus South Dakota, Prairie View A&M and Montana State.

In the offseason head coach Matt Ulmer left for Kansas and 6-3 senior outside hitter Mimi Colyer transferred to Wisconsin, the 2024 AVCA Northwest Region Player of the Year and three-time AVCA All-American.

Colyer told Badger Extra, “I knew right then that I didn’t want to stay at Oregon because the whole program basically was leaving,”

In their exhibition match with Oregon State Monday the Ducks fell three sets to one.

They reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament last season but they are starting over with an almost entirely new team. With Ulmer gone after seven years Trent Kersten takes over as coach, the 2024 WCC Head Coach of the Year at Loyola Marymount, 92-40 in five seasons.

Only one squad member stayed home, defensive specialist Maya De Los Reyes. Kersten mined the transfer portal for Orian Drore from Tennessee and Sophia Meyers, a 5-11 outside hitter from Loyola Marymount with 1,250 kills, 1,000 digs, 141 service aces, and 43 double-doubles in four seasons of college volleyball.

In all the 2025 squad has 16 new team members. Kersten told Olivia Cleary of KEZI, “A lot of people will talk about the challenges and just some of the things that come along with having so many new people. And I think from our end, we're looking at it as an opportunity, a blank slate, for people to try and discover their best.”

Ducks ready for Justin Lamson, new transfer QB at Montana State

They faced him before in another time and another place. In 2023 Justin Lamson was the starting quarterback for the Stanford Cardinal in a game at Palo Alto the Ducks won 42-6 with five sacks.

Lamson led The Cardinal on a pair of field goal drives early but Tosh Lupoi's crew held him to 32 yards on 22 carries as five different players got to the quarterback, including then-freshman Jerry Mixon, a Bay Area product who's in line to start Saturday at inside linebacker alongside Bryce Boettcher.

A 6-2, 210 senior from El Dorado Hills, California, Lamson is a career 46 percent passer with 428 rushing yards, escaping from perhaps the worst Power 4 program in America to a new start with an FCS powerhouse.

Lamson said to Grace Lawrence of Montana Sports, "Everyone says pressure’s a privilege, and that’s absolutely true. You work nine months out of the year to play three months of football, and even more. I’m super happy that I get that pressure, right, because I just worked super hard to be in this position."

Dan Orlovsky of ESPN: Dillon Gabriel gets it

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