It is no longer a feel-good, small-school Cinderella story. The TRU WolfPack women’s volleyball team is ranked second in a pre-season conference coaches’ poll, favoured to snare its first Canada West medal in program history.

“My whole time here, we’ve always been the underdogs that have these big upset games,” fourth-year outside hitter Hail Ward said. “Now, we’re going into games and we are expected to win.”

Most of the key cogs who last season helped the Pack reach the U Sports Championship for the first time in program history have returned for the 2026–2027 campaign, including Turkish sensation Rida Erlalelitepe, towering Bulgarian Maria Dancheva, national team libero Olivia Andulajevic, Kamloops kill machine Hail Ward and points factory Keira Gent.

“We will no longer be an up-and-coming, surprising team,” WolfPack head coach Chad Grimm said. “People will know what to expect, so I think it’s a bit of a different role, but we’re also a fairly mature group and I think we’ll be able to handle that.”

TRU set a program record in 2025-2026, its 14 wins the most it has compiled in a single Canada West season — a 14-6 record good for fourth place in conference standings.

The WolfPack knocked off sensational Raya Surinx and the Manitoba Bisons 2-1 in a best-of-three conference quarter-final series in Kamloops, the victory securing passage to the Canada West Final Four and national championship tournament.

Grimm’s charges failed to win another match, falling short of procuring the program’s first medal.
The WolfPack started the 2026–2027 season with a sweep of the Mount Royal Cougars in Calgary and carried a record of 2–0 as of the Chronicle’s press deadline.

Ward is confident her club is on the brink of the podium, noting she is confident Myah Cressy has the pedigree to replace graduated middle Faith Christensen.

“We have no reason not to do better this year,” Ward said. “Lots of the other teams look a lot different than they did last year in playoffs, and we’ve just continued to get better.”