April 14, 2026
When Illinois Wesleyan University launched its men’s volleyball program in 2021, it arrived quietly, the way most new endeavors do at small liberal arts schools in central Illinois. No fanfare, no deep recruiting pipeline, no tradition to lean on. Just a gym, a roster, and a coach who believed something worth building was worth starting.
By the time the 2026 season ended, the Titans had rewritten nearly every record in their young program’s history, earned a top-20 national ranking for the first time, advanced to the CCIW Championship final for the first time, and reached 22 wins in a single season. And then, on April 13, the NCAA released its 21-team championship field. The at-large bids are awarded by the NCAA Power Index, a mathematical formula evaluating strength of schedule, quality of wins, and competitive performance.
Illinois Wesleyan was not in it. Whatever inputs produced that verdict, a group of young men who had given everything to the sport, to each other, and to a campus watching with growing wonder understood something no index can calculate.
A Program Finds Its Footing
Head coach Brandon Mueller has spent six seasons constructing something at IWU from scratch. Prior to 2026, the program had compiled a 45-69 overall record against a conference that includes Carthage, a program with four CCIW tournament titles and the kind of infrastructure a six-year-old program is still building toward. Mueller knows what championship volleyball looks like. A former Division III All-American and two-time national champion at Springfield College, he holds Springfield career records for kills, points, and service aces, and was inducted into the Springfield Hall of Fame in 2018. He came to Illinois Wesleyan not to maintain something but to create it.
In 2026, it arrived.
The Titans opened the season like a team that had been waiting to exhale. First-year Aydin Provost introduced himself to the conference in the opening week with 51 kills across four matches, hitting .345, earning back-to-back CCIW Hitter of the Week awards before many programs had settled into their rotations. The CCIW recognized both Provost and sophomore setter Ethan Kuziela for opening-week honors, an immediate signal that this was not the same Illinois Wesleyan.
The team set a school record with 64 kills in a four-set match. A marathon third set against Concordia Chicago ended 44-42, the longest set in Illinois Wesleyan history and tied for the second-longest in NCAA Division III history. The Titans led the nation in kills per set and assists per set, and by late March had climbed to No. 17 in the AVCA poll, the first top-20 ranking in program history.
The Kuziela Factor
Ethan Kuziela is the kind of setter who leaves statisticians slightly exhausted. The sophomore from Chicago, Illinois earned All-CCIW First Team honors after leading the nation in triple-doubles, a category requiring excellence in three phases simultaneously. In a standout performance against North Central, he posted career highs of 20 kills, 27 assists, 12 digs, and five blocks in a single match. In the CCIW Tournament final, he led the Titans with 14 kills and 14 assists against a Carthage defense that had answers for nearly everything. He will be back next season. The CCIW should be warned.
The Freshman Who Refused to Wait
Aydin Provost was not supposed to be this good this fast. Someone forgot to tell him. The first-year player from Mt. Carmel HS in Chicago, led the CCIW in kills with 229. Against Lakeland, he set a new school record with 21 kills in a three-set match hitting .531. Against Rockford, he tied his own record again with 21 kills, this time at .889. The CCIW named him First-Year Student-Athlete of the Year; he also earned All-CCIW Second Team honors. He finished the season as a cornerstone rather than a curiosity, the kind of foundational player who changes what a program believes is possible.
The Others Who Made It Run
Brenden Reutter provided veteran steadiness at setter alongside Kuziela, adding 14 assists and nine digs in the CCIW Tournament final. Outside hitter Bryce Williams delivered a .500 attack percentage in the regular season stretch run. Sophomore Ben Zima led the team and the conference in digs with 196. Freshman Dylan Quinn finished third in the CCIW in blocks with 43. Gavin Rohlwing rounded out the All-CCIW Second Team honors, a measure of the depth Mueller had assembled.
And then there was Jace Milka. The senior from Chicago was honored on Senior Day in the regular season finale, a moment that lands differently when you understand what it means to be a senior in a young program. Milka arrived when the program was still finding itself. He watched it grow around him. The CCIW recognized him with its RESPECT Award, a fitting tribute to a player whose contributions extended past statistics into the fabric of what this team became. Senior Day should never be taken lightly, and this one was not.
Carthage: A Rivalry Built in Heartbreak
You cannot tell the story of the 2026 Illinois Wesleyan volleyball season without spending time in the company of Carthage College. Three of the Titans’ six losses this season belonged to the Firebirds, and each one left a mark.
The first came February 19 in Kenosha, in the opening conference match of the season. Carthage, ranked fifth nationally at the time, took a 3-1 decision, with the fourth and final set ending at 27-25, the kind of finish that tells you the gap between these teams was smaller than the scoreboard suggested. The Titans split two sets, won a set convincingly, and then watched a service error in the final set give Carthage the match. A lesson, not a defeat.
The second meeting came April 4 in Bloomington, with the CCIW regular-season title on the line. The Titans had battled to 8-1 in the conference, tied with Carthage heading into the finale. Illinois Wesleyan opened with a 12-8 lead in the first set. They built a 23-21 advantage in the second. They tied the third at 24. Carthage won each of those sets: 25-23, 26-24, 26-24. Three sets, three margins of two points. There is no way to read that result as a comfortable Carthage win, because it was not one. It was a match played at the highest level by both sides, with the Firebirds emerging through a combination of championship experience and impeccable composure.
The third and most painful meeting was the CCIW Tournament Championship on April 11 in Kenosha. Illinois Wesleyan had never appeared in the CCIW final before. The Titans had reached it by sweeping Loras in the semifinals, with Wilson Spaulding delivering the match-clinching service ace in a 26-24 third set after Loras had held set point. The championship itself opened in familiar fashion: IWU built an 11-5 lead in the first set before Carthage steadied and eventually pulled out a 28-26 decision on a Ryan Bartz service ace. That first set, in retrospect, may have been the match. The Titans fell 25-21 in the second and 25-14 in the third, Carthage’s experience and depth taking over as the night wore on.
Three matches. Three losses. All of them decided in the final moments. Carthage finished No. 4 nationally at 22-3, won the CCIW regular-season title for the third straight year, and earned the automatic NCAA bid. Losing to that program in the final swings of close matches is not something to be ashamed of.
The Room Goes Quiet
On April 13, the NCAA released its 21-team field for the Division III Men’s Volleyball Championship. The seven at-large bids, awarded through the NPI, went to Cal Lutheran, Loras, Messiah, New York University, Springfield, Southern Virginia, and SUNY New Paltz. Illinois Wesleyan, at 22-6, ranked No. 17 nationally, leading the nation in two major statistical categories, winners of the CCIW Coaching Staff of the Year award, was not included.
Loras, from the same CCIW conference, earned an at-large bid with a 20-6 record. The NPI factors in strength of schedule heavily, so win-loss records alone do not tell the whole story. IWU dropped Loras three times this season, sweeping them twice. That said, 22 wins and a top-20 national ranking not clearing the bar is a result that will generate legitimate conversation among those who follow the sport closely, and that conversation is worth having.
It stings. It is supposed to.
What Cannot Be Measured
Here is what the NPI does not evaluate: the student section at the Shirk Center that grew from a polite cluster of onlookers into something genuinely loud over the course of a season. That shift happened because the team played with a kind of joy that invites people in. The 2026 Titans revitalized a corner of campus that most students had never thought much about before.
Think about what these young men did together. They trained through a central Illinois winter, held each other accountable, and walked into buildings across the CCIW as a team that demanded to be taken seriously. They set school records together. They stood in a CCIW Tournament final for the first time in their program’s history, wearing uniforms that meant something new.
Aydin Provost will remember the season he broke the school’s kill record twice. Ethan Kuziela will remember leading the nation in triple-doubles while still a sophomore setter. Jace Milka will remember that his Senior Day meant something to the people in the gym who understood what he had given. Wilson Spaulding will remember the service ace that sent Illinois Wesleyan to its first CCIW championship final. Ben Zima will remember diving for dig number 196, the one that kept a rally alive long enough for a teammate to do something beautiful.
Those memories belong to them permanently. No formula changes them. Brandon Mueller exits 2026 as the CCIW Coaching Staff of the Year, recognized by peers and opponents alike. The scoreboard changed because the culture changed first, and that does not happen by accident. The staff this season led by head coach Brandon Mueller also has Mike Eastman who joined the staff in 2025. Prior to that, Mike led IWU on the floor and is the all-time Titan leader in kills, digs, and points. Let’s shoutout the entire coaching and support staff with Alec Mucha (Asst Coach), Joe McDonagh (Manager), Kim Nelson-Brown (Sr. Associate), Mallery Pearson (Trainer), Meredith Maloney (Communications), and Tony Robbins (Asst. Director Shirk Complex).
The Brotherhood That Remains
The narrative around D3 volleyball tends to focus on NPI scores and strength of schedule calculations. Those things matter, to a point. But the reason these young men push through a season when fatigue and frustration are pulling in opposite directions has very little to do with any index.
They do it for each other.
The bonds formed in a program still writing its own story are different from those formed where tradition arrives pre-packaged. These Titans built it themselves. Every record they broke, they broke together. Every first they achieved, they achieved as a group. Reaching the CCIW final for the first time is a milestone that has their fingerprints on it permanently. Twenty-two years from now, when Ethan Kuziela is watching his own kid play a sport somewhere, this will be the season he comes back to.
To the Illinois Wesleyan Titans of 2026: the NPI evaluated your schedule and your wins and arrived at a number that did not earn a bid. That number does not define you. What defines you is the 22-win season nobody predicted, the national ranking that turned heads for the first time, the championship final appearance that rewrote this program’s ceiling, and the friendships forged in moments too tight to call until the final serve.
You showed a campus something it needed to see. You showed yourselves something more important.
That is not a consolation. That is the thing itself.
And with just one senior graduating, and 80% of the current roster underclassman, get ready for an IWU presence in the top 15 for years to come.
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Illinois Wesleyan finished the 2026 season 22-6, ranked No. 17 in the AVCA Division III Men’s Volleyball Poll.
Ethan Kuziela and Aydin Provost earned All-CCIW First and Second Team honors, respectively. The Titans were named the CCIW Coaching Staff of the Year.