A decade of steady growth, roster continuity, and competitive elevation in Wilkes-Barre
3/6/26
When Joe Czopek took over the Wilkes University men’s volleyball program in 2017, there was no program to speak of. There were no wins to point to, no roster tradition, no conference standing. There was just a court, a ball, and the same coach who had spent 17 years developing talent at Wyoming Valley West High School and another dozen before that at Nanticoke High School. Nine years later, now in his 10th season at the helm, Czopek has crossed the 100-win threshold for the men’s program, a milestone that quietly underscores one of the more compelling development stories in Division III men’s volleyball.
The path to 100 was not linear. The program’s early years were marked by the growing pains typical of any new varsity initiative. The 2019 squad was the first Wilkes men’s team to reach double digits in victories, finishing 10-16. A 2020 team that sat at 10-9 with 12 matches remaining never got to find out what it could have become, as the COVID-19 pandemic ended the season prematurely. Czopek pressed forward. By 2023, the Colonels posted an 18-10 record, then their best in program history. A year later, playing as an independent, they broke that mark with a 20-9 finish. The wins came faster as the players got better, and the players got better because Czopek kept recruiting with the same regional credibility he had built over decades of high school coaching in northeastern Pennsylvania.
The 2026 Season and What It Represents
Entering 2026, Czopek faces the task of rebuilding after a difficult 8-21 campaign in the program’s first year competing in the Continental Volleyball Conference, arguably the toughest conference in NCAA Division III men’s volleyball. The CVC features national powerhouses Southern Virginia, Juniata, and Marymount, programs that routinely appear in the AVCA top 10. Czopek acknowledged the challenge directly heading into this season, noting that in the CVC there are no easy matches and that every night requires full effort.
The 2026 roster reflects the culture Czopek has worked to establish. The senior class is a libero tandem in Alex Derk of Perkasie, Pennsylvania, and Sam Winter of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, two players who have grown up inside this program since their first-year seasons in 2023. Derk appeared in all 29 matches last year, finishing second on the team in both digs and reception percentage. Winter, a four-year contributor, brings leadership on the back row that younger players look toward for positioning and composure. That Czopek would build his senior class around two defensive specialists says something about how he thinks about the game. The back row is not an afterthought; it is the foundation.
The offensive engine this season runs through junior Aidan Hunter of Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania, who Czopek has described as having big shoes to fill following the graduation of program all-time kills leader Jackson Shafer. Hunter posted 90 kills and 104 points in 2025 as a supporting player. Now he steps into the primary attacking role. Alongside him, sophomore middle hitters Aaron Ladd and Evanston Myers each blocked 25 balls last year as first-year players, demonstrating the kind of physical development Czopek builds toward incrementally. Sophomore setter Joshua Conley ran the offense efficiently in his debut season, leading the team with 493 assists and giving the Colonels a true distributor who will only improve with experience.
Cohesion as a Coaching Philosophy
What distinguishes Czopek’s program is not any single recruiting class or standout individual, but rather the overlap and continuity he has built across cohorts. First-year opposite Carter Otto from Mountain View, California, arrived with a decorated prep career and immediately became a weapon, putting up 17 kills in a mid-February match against Kean University. Sophomore opposite Jonnathan Rocha, outside hitter Jacob Ruiz, and libero Trey Tellier all saw meaningful playing time as first-year players in 2025 and return with a year of CVC competition in their legs. The blend of seniors who have weathered multiple program eras, sophomores who absorbed the conference’s physicality firsthand, and incoming players with high ceilings is not accidental. It is the architecture of a coach who plans in cycles.
Czopek also benefits from a consistent staff that includes his son Alex, who has served as assistant coach on the men’s side since the program’s inception. That continuity at the coaching table reinforces the program’s institutional memory, something invaluable in a sport where roster turnover can reset culture quickly. The Czopeks also run Northeast United Volleyball Academy together, deepening their regional recruiting pipeline and providing another layer of familiarity with local athletes before they ever step onto the Marts Center floor in Wilkes-Barre.
A Milestone With More to Follow
The 100-win mark for the men’s program is a personal milestone for Czopek, who had already cleared that threshold on the women’s side back in 2019. It signals that the men’s program has reached critical mass, that the early years of establishing a roster and a schedule and a culture have given way to something more sustainable. And with the program set to transition out of the CVC and into the newly formed Landmark Conference for men’s volleyball beginning in 2027, joining familiar faces in Juniata, Drew, Kean, Ramapo, and Elizabethtown alongside new entrants Scranton and Lycoming, Czopek is already positioning the Colonels for the next chapter.
There is an unglamorous quality to building a program from year one, adding wins slowly, losing more than you would like in competitive conference play, watching players develop and graduate and make room for the next group. Joe Czopek has done that work patiently and without fanfare on the banks of the Susquehanna. One hundred wins into the men’s program he started, with a returning core that believes it has unfinished business, there is reason to think the next milestone arrives sooner than the first one did.
2026 Wilkes Men’s Volleyball Season Preview