The Panthers weren’t supposed to be playing in the NCAA tournament.

A year ago, EIU volleyball was buried near the bottom of the Ohio Valley Conference standings. The Panthers were a 9–19 team with little reason to dream big after missing the OVC tournament.

Even entering this season, the Panthers were projected to finish eighth in the preseason poll.

Despite this, Eastern hoisted the OVC championship trophy on Nov. 25, and earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Ask people around the program what went into the sudden success, and the answer will come quickly: culture.

The new coaching staff changed the culture after recognizing that it wasn’t super favorable in the past, said head coach Ryan Millar.

At the center of the transformation was assistant coach Paige Gardella, who brings a unique perspective to the program because of her journey through it.

She arrived at EIU as a graduate assistant in 2024, but 10 games into the season, and in the first OVC game, she unexpectedly returned to life as a player because the team was down one of its two setters due to injury. 

And Gardella, a former collegiate setter, had one year of NCAA eligibility left.

She recorded 143 assists and 36 digs during the season and had a season-high of 31 assists on Oct. 11, 2024, just six games into her career as a Panther.

Then, after the season with no playing eligibility left, and still pursuing her master’s degree in business administration, she went back to being a graduate assistant. 

However, turnover in the coaching staff arose in January 2025. Manolo Concepcion’s contract wasn’t renewed, and Sara Thomas resigned shortly after.

Eastern’s volleyball program became stranded with no other coaches, so Gardella became the head of the program for almost a month and a half.

On Feb. 27, Millar was hired as the head coach. That same day he asked Gardella to be his assistant coach.

Millar got to know Gardella because Athletic Director Tom Michael had Millar spend time with her during his hiring process. 

“Her perspective on the general nature of the girls that were coming back, the vibe of the team, what she had experienced the year before and her perspective on things that needed change,” Millar said. “All of that was super, super important to me.”

He took advantage of Gardella’s knowledge of the team and rapport with a lot of the players.

“So being able to have kind of a natural to the core girls that were coming back, through Paige, was to me really critical in establishing some of the things that I wanted to build in the program.”

One of the things Millar wanted to build was a new culture. It was something they started initiating early on, Millar said, and they wanted it to be something created by the players with their input on what is needed for it to be successful.

“We got together with them, and we kind of mapped out a culture identification process, where they identified some what we call culture principles that the girls live by, and those culture principles kind of drive the two outcomes that we’re trying to achieve as a team,” Millar said. “And it was cool to see Paige jump on board with that so quickly and how interested she was in that process, and helping facilitate that process.”

Cultural guidelines that came out of this set standards for how they show up on the court on gamedays and practices, which Millar said has led to a lot of people coming up to him and sharing their admiration for the grit and the grind they see from the girls.

Returning players from last year have echoed the positive impact.

“I think we’ve really worked on being super close on and off the court,” sophomore outside hitter Katie Kopshever said. “And we just mesh and trust each other.”

Senior outside hitter Lilli Amettis said: “Practice is fun, practice is competitive, everyone is goofy and funny, and everybody comes in and works really hard every single day.”

One goal was letting the players express themselves, Gardella said. 

“Volleyball is supposed to be fun,” Gardella said. “We all started playing because it was fun and your last four years for most people should still be fun and enjoyable. So just kind of flipping that switch from it being almost job-like to being like ‘I enjoy coming into the gym everyday.’”

Gardella said that the shift has allowed players to play more freely, saying they are more willing to go after tough balls and keep trying after making mistakes.

Millar and Gardella have also made changes for things off the court.

“One of our things is they’re adults so we’re going to treat them that way,” Gardella said. “I would say, like last year things were a little bit more monitored and the girls were on a little bit of a shorter leash. But we’re giving them more freedom to be involved, be a student and be a part of the EIU community.”

As well as making sure the players are students first, something Gardella said got lost at times last year.

Gardella said that a goal they have set forth to accomplish every year is making the American Volleyball Coaches Association Team Academic Award which is accomplished by the team maintaining a year-long GPA of 3.3.

“So, whatever the girls have to do, whether they have to go see a professor during practice and be a little late, that’s totally fine,” Gardella said. “Like, we want them to do well in the classroom because at the end of the day, you have to get a degree when you’re done with this. So making sure we kind of see them as not just an athlete, but also a student and as a whole person, whereas I think that got maybe a little bit lost last year. So, I think that’s been a big part of our culture switch.”

While being alongside Millar coaching and initiating this culture change, Gardella has still been pursuing a masters degree.

She had to work out managing classes while having enough time to be an assistant coach. She said she worked a lot with the athletic department and Tom Michael to figure out the best way to go about it.

The main solution was taking multiple courses this past summer, allowing her to only have to take one class in the fall and spring semesters.

She said she’s looking forward to graduating and being able to put even more time into coaching, which is something she plans on continuing to do.

“Getting these early kinds of really critical coaching reps for her, I think is just massive for a potentially really good coaching career, if this is something that she wanted to continue in,” Millar said.

But even in this stage of her career, Millar emphasized how great of an assistant she is.

He said that Gardella handles a large portion of the program’s administrative work, including managing road trips, allowing him to focus more on on-court and academic priorities.

They also developed a strong working rhythm quickly, and Gardella tends to understand his expectations of what he needs her to do before he even asks her, Millar said. 

“I now know why coaches tend to have assistant coaches on their staff for a while,” he said.

Millar added that Gardella’s youth, being a 23-year old college student, is an asset and not a weakness.

“The way she does things is going to be very different than the way I’m going to do things,” Millar said. “But I feel like that’s beneficial for us.”

Bryce Parker can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].