When Matt Ulmer left Oregon Volleyball at the end of last season, the Ducks were in a bit of a bind. Ulmer had built a solid program that only failed to reach the NCAA tournament once in his seven seasons (2019). In fact, in the 19 seasons since 2006, the Ducks had only failed to get to the postseason twice – in 2019, and in 2010 under previous head coach Jim Moore.
Matt Ulmer was under pressure to continue Oregon’s volleyball success, and he delivered. The trick for the University of Oregon has been
to bring in a coach that can not only continue that success, but bring in a coach that can completely rebuild a program from the ground up.
Enter Trent Kersten.
Kersten was a walk-on at UCLA, but played three years as a starter and earned a scholarship. As a 2015 All-MPSF honorable mention selection, he ranked among the nation’s top 15 in hitting percentage (.387) and blocks per set (1.08) in his final year, and graduated from UCLA in 2015.
Kersten spent five seasons on the coaching staff at TCU before becoming the head coach for San Jose State. He has recruiting chops – As the TCU recruiting coordinator, his 2019 class was ranked fifth in the nation by Volleyball Magazine and sixth by Prep Volleyball.
He spent three seasons at SJSU, from 2020-2022. There he was 47-28 overall, and helped the Spartans to a runner-up finish in the Mountain West Conference in 2022. After the 2022 season Kersten was hired as the head coach at LMU. Last season Kersten led LMU to a 25-6 record. As a 7-seed, they defeated Washington in the first round before falling to #2 Stanford in the second round. Kersten had led LMU to its first West Coast Conference title since 1996, and won the 2024 WCC Coach of the Year as well.
Kersten brought in two players from his LMU team and several transfers, but 10 of Oregon’s players are freshmen that have no college playing experience. This poses a tremendous challenge for Oregon volleyball to continue its success.
With all these unknowns, it’s impossible to get a read on what the 2025 Oregon Ducks volleyball is all about. I didn’t even try in my Big-10 volleyball preview, here.
Understandably, Oregon is going in light in the non-conference slate of the schedule, as they figure out just how they are going to tick. None of the teams that Oregon faces in the next month are ranked. The Ducks will be traveling no further east than Bozeman, MT.; elsewhere, they are either playing in Oregon locations or in Long Beach, CA.
The Ducks first travel to Bozeman for the EVEN Hotel Bobcat Invite. They will face South Dakota, Prairie View A&M, and host Montana State.
Oregon then heads north for a match against Portland State before hosting Colorado State in MKA. Then they will finish out the non-conference portion of their schedule at the Long Beach State University tournament; playing host LBSU, San Diego State, and UC Riverside before a match in Corvallis against the Beavers.
And in a month’s time, perhaps we’ll know a little bit more about the 2025 Oregon volleyball team. But first, we’ll get an exhibition look at Oregon volleyball this comind Saturday.
