The Wyoming Cowgirl volleyball season–and head coach Kaylee Prigge’s third season at the helm–is officially underway as the Cowgirls opened their season playing host to Tulsa, Cleveland State and Colorado in one of two home tournaments the Cowgirls are set to host this season. While the Cowgirls’ roster skews young, they certainly didn’t play as so, as the Cowgirls boasted a 2-1 record by the time the dust settled in Laramie.
The Cowgirls kicked things off with the Golden Hurricanes of Tulsa, a match which proved to be an onerous first test for this youthful, unproven squad–but prove themselves they would with a 3-1 victory, including an exhilarating back-and-forth final set that displayed some of this young team’s resilience–as they were able to scrape past the Golden Hurricanes by a score of 28-26 in the series winning set.
The Cowgirls’ lone all-Mountain West selection, Paige Lauterwasser, led the way in the Cowgirls’ first win of the season, tallying a team-high 15 kills alongside eight digs on the backline and four blocks on the front of the net. Sarah Holcomb followed suit with 11 kills and six blocks up front and freshman Sarah Quigley finished with an eye-popping 44 assists, with the next best player on the team only tallying two.
“She’s got a ton on her plate, and she’s just managing it really, really well,” Prigge said of Quigley, who is taking over for all-Mountain West setter Kasia Partyka, a task not to be understated.
While the Golden Hurricanes outpaced the Cowgirls in nearly every statistical category–including over 10 more total kills, assists and digs than them, the Cowgirls were able to take advantage of the sloppy play of the Golden Hurricanes, who suffered by their own hands with numerous service and attacking errors, giving up an astounding 31 total points off their own mistakes.
The Cowgirls’ next opponent came in the form of the Cleveland State Vikings, a team relatively as young as the Cowgirls but one that did win the Horizon League title a season ago. However, the Cowgirls were able to make quick work of the Vikings, cleanly putting them away on their way to their first three set sweep of the season.
Love a Cowgirl sweep 🤠🧹 pic.twitter.com/qZaErsrzd8
— Wyoming Cowgirl Volleyball (@WYO_Volleyball) August 31, 2025
While the first set was a competitive one, the Cowgirls showed their dominance through the following two sets–particularly the third and final frame, where the Cowgirls dispatched the Viking 25-12 off the back of runs of seven and six straight points, respectively. Holcomb shone once again for the second straight game, tallying a team-high 14 kills off an even .500 hitting percentage. True freshman Addy Cook wasn’t far behind with 10 kills and sophomore Addy Thorington finished with eight kills as the Cowgirls were able to outpace their opponents in the kills department 47-37 this time around.
“We had six attacking errors and two of them were blocks and we had two basically freshmen on the left, that is insane,” Prigge said of her young frontline, including Cook and Thorington.
“I’m so impressed with how they manage the game.”
The biggest test of the weekend was undoubtedly the Cowgirls’ third and final matchup against the Colorado Buffaloes. While the Cowgirls battled closely with the Buffaloes through the first and third set, the Buffaloes proved to be too much–particularly at the net–for the Cowgirls, as they were befell in three sets.
“We had some amazing digs, some great blocks, but I think the little things, like they scored maybe a little too much on their tips and their outshots,” Holcomb said.
Prigge featured a much deeper rotation against the Buffaloes than she had employed in the previous two contests, as the Cowgirls deployed a twelve player rotation in an attempt to spark a comeback–particularly after the Cowgirls were overwhelmed in the second set by a score of 25-13. The enhanced rotation was nearly enough to steal away the third set for the Cowgirls, who were barely toppled in the third set by a score of 25-22.
“The last game, it shows the depth we have on the bench with everyone we had coming in, and they were all scoring,” Holcomb said.
Despite being unable to finish their first weekend’s worth of games 3-0–a feat Prigge led teams have achieved in both her previous seasons at the helm–the Cowgirls are extremely confident in what lies ahead.
“I’m glad that it didn’t go perfectly,” Prigge said in reference to her team’s 2-1 record from the weekend–particularly the Cowgirls’ loss to Colorado.
“We talked about that this morning…about how we out-teamed Cleveland State, and that’s great, but everything was going well 99% of the time. How are we going to out-team someone, how is it going to be positive, how are we going to have fun in matches where it’s not going very well? I don’t think we totally figured it out until the very end, and it was too little too late.”
While Prigge’s youthful team still has much more to experience–particularly seeing as they’ll be on the road in hostile environments for the next two weeks–their confidence, especially after tallying two dominant wins, is unshaken and even greater than before this opening weekend.
“I think mostly all the freshmen are ready to play at this level and they have that dog mentality where they want to get out there and show them what’s up,” freshman Lily LaFlesch said.
The Cowgirls will certainly have to maintain that air of confidence–and then some–in their next outings in South Dakota, where they will take on two tough programs in South Dakota State and Ole Miss.
