It all ended Friday at Pam Evans Smith Arena when Wittenberg beat No. 1 Juniata in five sets: 23-25, 25-14, 25-20, 20-25, 15-13. Juniata fell six victories short of tying the all-divisions NCAA record winning streak of 106, set by Penn State from 2007-10.
“When two programs like Juniata and Wittenberg come together, it’s always a really good battle,” Wittenberg coach Evelyn Miller said Monday, “and we always talk about how we belong in these matches.”
Junaita has won five national championships in all and has finished national runner-up six times. Wittenberg is a storied program, too. It won a national championship in 2011 and finished runner-up in 2015 and 2017.
Miller, a 2010 Tipp City High School graduate who played at Otterbein College, took over the program in 2018 after two seasons as an assistant on Paco Labrador’s staff.
In Miller’s first season, she guided the Tigers to their 12th consecutive North Coast Athletic Conference tournament championship. They won another championship in 2022 but have had sub-par seasons, at least by Wittenberg standards, the last two seasons, finishing 16-14 and then 17-10.
“Everybody knows who Wittenberg is, and everybody wants to beat Wittenberg,” Miller said, “but we haven’t been the Wittenberg that everybody knows and remembers, and so it’s about building towards that.”
Wittenberg started the 2025 season with three losses in four matches but beat Albion and Mount St. Joseph to even its record at 3-3 entering the match against Juniata.
“Our motto at the beginning of the season was ‘unsatisfied but optimistic,’” Miller said. “I think the optimism won out this weekend against Juniata. We just kind of did our thing, and we knew exactly what we needed to do to beat them.”
Senior outside hitter Alana Bartulovic led Wittenberg with 15 kills against Juniata. Claire O’Malley, a sophomore middle blocker, added 10 kills and three blocks. Senior libero Ally White had 19 digs.
Several local graduates contributed to the victory:
• Kenton Ridge graduate Sam Fincham, a junior outside hitter, started and had seven kills.
• Olivia Follick, a senior middle blocker from Vandalia Butler, also had seven kills.
• Mary Sulfridge, a sophomore setter from Southeastern, had 31 assists.
Seventeen of the 23 players on Wittenberg’s roster are from Ohio.
“Our goal is always to win Ohio,” Miller said. “If we’re not winning Ohio, we better be winning at least the surrounding area. We can’t let talent leave the Springfield area. But there’s good volleyball everywhere. When I first took over, it was like, ‘Okay, it’s just got to be Ohio.’ And then I started to realize that there is really good volleyball in our bordering states, and I should be going after some of those players.”
Wittenberg followed its victory against Juniata with a three-set victory against Baldwin-Wallace in Springfield on Saturday. It plays another ranked team, No. 16 Illinois Wesleyan, on the road Friday.
Miller saw her team transform in the offseason. Long days in the gym over the summer paid off in the victory against Juniata. She knew the team had depth and could lean on different combinations of players. She knew the young players who gained experience last season would be more prepared this season.
“They were really excited to grow together,” she said, “and I think that’s something that I haven’t really experienced in my time here. It just kind of felt like there was always a divide between starters and non starters, and our two senior captains did a really good job, basically from the day they were announced as captains back in January to now.”
Miller played for her dad, Pat Carus, at Tippecanoe. Pat played college volleyball at Ohio State and is now a volunteer assistant coach for his daughter.
Miller joined Labrador’s coaching staff in 2016. Labrador left for the head coaching job at Navy but remains a mentor for her. He was one of many people to reach out after the victory against Juniata.
“When he left the program to me,” Miller said, “for the first few years, it was, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not ready for this. This is too much for me.’ But then I started to kind of settle in and realize that as a mentor, he knew me better than I knew myself, and he knew I could handle it, and that I was going to be motivated. It might just take some time to make it my own. It’s huge shoes to fill, and it took me a really long time to realize that he is gone, and it’s not his program anymore. It’s my program. Seeing the culture and where our team is right now, it definitely kind of feels like it is mine now.”
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