Sydney Schnichels, a former Minnesota Miss Volleyball selection and one of the Gophers’ promising young players, announced Sunday that she’s entering the transfer portal.
The 6-4 redshirt sophomore from Willmar appeared in eight matches as a reserve outside/opposite hitter for the Gophers last season. She redshirted during coach Keegan Cook’s first season in 2023.
“She has the option to return, but she’s going to go through that [portal] process,” Cook told the Star Tribune. “That’s another person we’ve done a lot of good work with and we care about a lot.”
The top recruit in former Gophers coach Hugh McCutcheon’s 2023 class, Schnichels was the No. 1 overall recruit in Minnesota and a first-team All-America selection by the American Volleyball Coaches Association as a high school senior.
“Thank you for these past two years,” Schnichels wrote on her Instagram page Sunday night. “Thank you for giving me the chance to live out the dream I’ve had since I was a little girl. Wearing maroon and gold was a great honor and something I will cherish forever. ... After much thought and consideration, I have made the decision to enter the transfer portal. While this process has been hard, I am so excited to see what this next chapter holds.”
The Gophers, who added several top newcomers in the spring season, also saw former Georgia Tech transfer Kali Engeman enter the portal last week. Engeman played in 17 matches as a middle blocker.
“One thing I talked to the team a lot about — we’ve got to be better at welcoming people to our program and we want to be better about people leaving our program if that happens,” Cook said. “Sometimes the transfer situation, it gets a negative connotation, but it doesn’t have to be. We don’t have to make a hard thing harder. These are two [players] who have helped us out a ton and who we helped a ton. We hope they can find a situation where they get to play a lot. It’s not a bad thing.”
