Including the current 2024 season, the Badgers have made the NCAA volleyball tournament 28 times. Their first tournament appearance was in 1990, the same year the team won its first Big Ten championship. With only 50 seasons under its belt, the volleyball team has qualified for the national tournament 56 percent of the time. Since Kelly Sheffield, the program’s winningest coach, took the helm in late 2012, the team has qualified for the tournament 100 percent of the time. The Badgers have reached the Elite Eight every year since 2018 — including this season before falling to Nebraska — while also racking up four Final Four appearances during the same period, and, of course, winning their first national championship in 2021. This streak of success for Wisconsin volleyball is due in part to stand-outs like Sarah Franklin x’25, who earned a 2024 ESPY nomination for best female collegiate athlete (Caitlin Clark took home the prize), and who was the first Badger to win two Big Ten Player of the Year volleyball awards. Oh, and two other recent Wisconsin volleyball players, Lauren Carlini ’17 and Dana Rettke ’21, helped Team USA win a silver medal in Paris last summer. Talk about an ace program.