Galesburg Silver Streaks Volleyball: 2026 Schedule, Results and Roster
Galesburg Silver Streaks · Galesburg, Illinois
Latest result: lost 2-1 to Moline on September 3. Now 4-4. Next: at Alleman, Tuesday September 8.
2026: 4-4 · Coach: Nicole Kisler · 2025: 15-21, eighth in the Western Big 6
Eight seniors — the most experienced roster of any volleyball team in this coverage area, at the one school that does not play in the Lincoln Trail.
The senior class
Nicole Kisler has eight seniors: Taylor Adams, Evelin Guel, Grace Herchenroder, Taylor Herchenroder, Macey Huft, Cali Froelich, Molly Tomeo and Addy Painter.
No other area programme has more than six.
Early numbers back it up. Taylor Adams, an outside hitter and defensive specialist, leads the team at four kills per set. Setter Evelin Guel is at 3.5 digs per set. Junior middle Ellie Johnson is hitting .556 — the best mark on the roster.
Grace Herchenroder plays libero, her sister Taylor sets and plays opposite. Brynn Atwell and Wendy Huft assist Kisler.
2026 so far
- Aug 24 — won 2-0 (the opponent is listed only as a placeholder on MaxPreps; we are confirming it)
- Aug 25 — lost at Morton, 0-2
- Aug 29 — home tournament against Marian Catholic and Red Bud
Sept 3 — lost to Moline 2-1. The published set scores imply a Galesburg win, which contradicts the confirmed result. The outcome is solid; we are not printing set scores we cannot reconcile.
A different schedule to everyone else
Galesburg is the only area volleyball team in the Western Big 6. Everyone else plays in the Lincoln Trail, or in Monmouth-Roseville’s case the Three Rivers.
That means a season against Moline, Rock Island, Quincy, Sterling, Geneseo, United Township and Alleman — schools with enrollments up to 1,800, none of which any other team here ever sees.
It also means the Silver Streaks’ 15-21 record last season came against considerably larger opposition than the small-school records elsewhere on this site.
September schedule
| Date | Opponent | Site |
|---|---|---|
| Sept 3 | Moline † | Home |
| Sept 8 | Alleman † | Home |
| Sept 10 | at Rock Island † | Away |
| Sept 15 | United Township † | Home |
| Sept 17 | Quincy † | Home |
| Sept 21 | at Peoria Notre Dame | Away |
| Sept 22 | Geneseo † | Home |
| Sept 24 | at Sterling † | Away |
| Sept 29 | at Moline † | Away |
† Western Big 6. Conference play opens at home to Moline on September 3.
2025, and the best day of it
Galesburg finished 15-21 overall and 3-11 in the Western Big 6, eighth of eight.
The season’s high point came on October 11, when the Streaks won four straight at a tournament — beating Naperville Central, Dixon, Oak Forest and Yorkville Christian in a single day.
In the postseason they hosted the Class 3A regional, beat Streator 25-15, 25-9 on October 27, then lost to LaSalle-Peru 26-24, 25-10 the following night. That first set was the closest Galesburg came to a deeper run.
Where they play
Home matches are at Thiel Gymnasium, named for John Thiel, who coached Galesburg boys basketball for eighteen years at .816 and won sixteen straight regional titles between 1955 and 1970.
The lightning bolt at centre court has been there since the building opened.
The bigger picture
Galesburg enrolls 1,120 students, four times the size of most schools on this site, and fields the deepest athletic programme in the region — twenty sports across boys and girls.
Volleyball has not been among its strongest. The school’s five state championships came in basketball, golf, girls tennis and baseball, and the volleyball programme has never reached a state final.
But eight seniors is eight seniors, and the Western Big 6 has been winnable at the top before.
The postseason
State semifinals are Friday, November 13, finals and third-place games Saturday, November 14, at CEFCU Arena on the Illinois State campus in Normal. Class 3A plays in the late afternoon on the Friday.
Regional and sectional assignments for 2026 have not been published by the IHSA yet.
October schedule
| Date | Opponent | Site | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1 | at Alleman † | Away | 7:00 |
| Oct 6 | Rock Island † | Home | 7:00 |
| Oct 8 | at United Township † | Away | 5:00 |
| Oct 10 | Dixon | Home | TBA |
| Oct 12 | Dunlap | Home | 7:00 |
| Oct 13 | at Quincy † | Away | 6:00 |
| Oct 15 | at Geneseo † | Away | 5:00 |
| Oct 16 | Limestone | Home | TBA |
| Oct 17 | Limestone | Home | TBA |
| Oct 20 | Sterling † | Home | 7:00 |
| Oct 22 | at Richwoods | Away | 4:30 |
† Western Big 6.
The hardest volleyball record in the area
Galesburg’s all-time IHSA volleyball mark is 541-648-8 across 41 seasons — a .455 winning percentage. It is the only losing all-time record among the larger programmes here, and it reflects four decades of playing schools two and three times its opponents’ size elsewhere in this conference.
Two regional titles: 2004-05 in Class AA and 2007-08 in Class 3A, plus district championships in 1975 and 1976.
No sectional titles. No state-finals appearances.
Put next to the school’s five state championships in basketball, golf, tennis and baseball, volleyball is the sport Galesburg has found hardest.
Marla Clay’s twenty-eight seasons
The longest tenure of any volleyball coach at any school in this coverage area belongs to Galesburg.
Marla Clay coached the Silver Streaks from 1994 to 2022 — twenty-eight seasons, including both regional titles.
Before her: Chris Hoffmann from 1981, Kristie Murdock from 1984, Bill Sargeant from 1989. After her: Mindy Matthews for two seasons, then Nicole Kisler from 2024.
Five coaches in forty-five years, one of whom accounted for more than half of them.
The October stretch
Eleven matches in twenty-two days, including back-to-back home dates against Limestone on October 16 and 17 and a Western Big 6 run that takes in Alleman, Rock Island, United Township, Quincy, Geneseo and Sterling.
The season closes at Richwoods on October 22, a 4:30 start.
Two districts, two regionals, and four blank years
Galesburg’s IHSA file needs one caveat attached to it. The Silver Streaks’ 541-648-8 covers 41 recorded seasons, but 2012-13 through 2015-16 carry no win-loss totals — the rows list Marla Clay as coach and nothing else. Clay’s tenure ran from 1994-95 to 2021-22, yet her coaching total covers only 24 recorded years. Four seasons of Galesburg volleyball are simply missing from the public record.
The hardware, in full: district championships in 1974-75 and 1975-76, from the era before the regional format, and two regional championships — 2004-05 in Class AA and 2007-08 in Class 3A. No sectional title, no super-sectional, no state finals appearance in 41 seasons.
Context matters on those two regionals. Galesburg is the only school in this coverage area playing in the large-school classes, which means its regional draw looks nothing like the Class 1A brackets its neighbours face. A Galesburg regional is a harder plaque to win than a Class 1A one, and the 2004-05 and 2007-08 teams won theirs against schools several times the size of anyone else on this site.
Send us results
Volleyball gets a fraction of the coverage football does around here, and almost none of these matches are written up anywhere. If you have a result, a stat line or a photo, send it in — we post them as they come and correct errors the same day.
Records from MaxPreps schedule pages, cross-checked where the site’s own pages disagree. Postseason results via the Peoria Journal Star. All area volleyball standings →
