Knoxville Blue Bullets Volleyball: 2026 Schedule, Results and Roster
Knoxville Blue Bullets · Knoxville, Illinois
Latest result: lost 1-2 at Cuba/Spoon River Valley on September 3. Now 6-3. Next: Lewistown at home, Thursday September 10, 6:00.
2026: 6-3 · Coach: Madi Fellhauer · 2025: 15-20, seventh in the Lincoln Trail
Five seniors, a strong start, and a September fixture list that includes what looks like the best conference match of the month.
2026 so far
- Aug 24 — beat Rockridge, 2-1
- Aug 26 — lost to Monmouth-Roseville, 0-2
- Aug 27 — won at Farmington, 2-0
- Aug 29 — hosted a tournament with Wethersfield, Farmington and Monmouth-Roseville
Sept 1 — beat Bushnell-Prairie City 2-0. Set scores not published.
Sept 3 — lost at Cuba/Spoon River Valley 1-2. Set scores not published. Knoxville share the best record in the area at 6-3.
The roster
Five seniors lead it. Jaydin Brockett, an outside hitter, is at three kills per set. Libero Maya Wight is at four digs per set. Setter Aubrey Johnston has five aces and 1.7 assists per set. Emersyn Rask is hitting .333.
Junior middle Rowan Pease already has three blocks. Aubree Givan and Carsen Cowman round out the senior group.
Libby Campbell assists.
September
September schedule
| Date | Opponent | Site |
|---|---|---|
| Sept 1 | at Bushnell-Prairie City | Away |
| Sept 3 | at Cuba/Spoon River Valley | Away |
| Sept 10 | Lewistown | Home |
| Sept 12 | at Kewanee | Away |
| Sept 14 | at Sherrard | Away |
| Sept 16 | Bureau Valley † | Home |
| Sept 19 | Home tournament | Home |
| Sept 21 | Abingdon-Avon † | Home |
| Sept 23 | at Annawan † | Away |
| Sept 28 | Ridgewood † | Home |
| Sept 30 | at Galva † | Away |
† Lincoln Trail Conference.
September 16 against Bureau Valley is the one to circle. Both teams opened 2-1, both finished mid-table last season, and it is the most evenly matched conference fixture on the September calendar.
2025
Knoxville went 15-20 overall and 5-6 in conference, seventh of twelve — a record that undersells a strong finish. The Blue Bullets swept Abingdon-Avon and beat both Annawan and United.
In the postseason they beat United 25-15, 20-25, 25-20 on October 28, then lost to Brimfield 25-11, 25-15 the next night.
One note on the record books: MaxPreps lists Knoxville at 15-20-1 for 2025, with a “tie” on September 27. Volleyball has no ties — that is a tournament artifact, and the real record is 15-20.
The 2024 near-miss
The year before was the closer one. Knoxville went into the final week of the 2024 season tied at the top of the Lincoln Trail with Wethersfield, and the two met with the title on the line.
Wethersfield won in three sets and took the championship.
The school
Knoxville enrolls 279 students, six miles south-east of Galesburg, in a town of 2,901 that was the Knox County seat until 1873.
The volleyball programme is 649-494-27 all-time across its history, with twelve regional titles dating back to 1981 — a consistently solid record at a school that has never won a state trophy in any sport but boys cross country, which took third in 2007.
Marci Tyrrell coached the programme for six seasons at .542 before Fellhauer.
The postseason
State semifinals Friday, November 13, finals Saturday, November 14, at CEFCU Arena in Normal, with Class 1A first on both days at 9:00 and 10:30 in the morning.
2026 regional and sectional assignments have not been published.
October schedule
| Date | Opponent | Site | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1 | Elmwood | Home | 7:00 |
| Oct 5 | United | Home | 7:00 |
| Oct 7 | at Stark County | Away | 5:00 |
| Oct 8 | at Brimfield | Away | 5:00 |
| Oct 12 | at West Central | Away | 7:00 |
| Oct 14 | Wethersfield | Home | 7:00 |
| Oct 19 | at ROWVA/Williamsfield | Away | 7:00 |
| Oct 21 | Princeville | Home | 7:00 |
| Oct 22 | at Illini Bluffs | Away | 7:00 |
October 14 against Wethersfield and October 19 at ROWVA/Williamsfield come in the same week — the two programmes that finished first and second in the conference last season, back to back.
Eleven regional titles, and a long time since the last one
Knoxville’s volleyball record with the IHSA is 649-494-27 across 44 seasons, a .566 winning percentage — a consistently winning programme over four decades.
The regional championships came in clusters: 1987, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2003, plus a district title in 1981.
Seven of the eleven arrived in a ten-year stretch through the nineties. None has come since 2003 — twenty-three seasons and counting.
The programme has never won a sectional.
The coaching lineage
Karen Randall coached fourteen seasons across two separate stints, 1980 to 1990 and 1998 to 2002 — taking in most of the district and early regional era.
Richard Knowles had it from 1990 to 1998, the peak of the regional run, including a 27-4 season in 1995-96.
Then Valerie Ford, Brandy Nolan, Kellie Nelson, Stacy Kavanagh and Kelly Ricketts in shorter spells, before Marci Tyrrell from 2015. Madi Fellhauer has it now.
2025, and a tie that was not a tie
Knoxville finished 15-20 and 5-6 in conference. MaxPreps lists the record as 15-20-1, with a “tie” against Kewanee on September 27 — volleyball has no ties, and that is a tournament artifact.
The season’s best result was on October 11, when Knoxville lost to Ridgewood — one of only two matches the Spartans won all year. It is the sort of result that gets remembered in a conference this small.
A data note: the IHSA’s own page for Knoxville returns figures for 2021-26 that duplicate rows from 2011-16. We have used MaxPreps for recent seasons and IHSA only for the all-time and regional-title record.
A record that stops in 2021
Knoxville’s 649-494-27 is the second-most wins of any program in this coverage area, across 44 seasons dating to 1973-74. But the filing is stale. The IHSA record’s last entry is 2020-21, under Marci Tyrrell. Nothing has been submitted for 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 or 2025-26 — five missing seasons.
That is why you should be careful with the number. It is a real IHSA figure and it is close to complete, but it is a 2021 snapshot, not a current mark.
The other thing the record shows, and it is stark: in 44 seasons and 649 wins, Knoxville has never won a sectional championship. Eleven regional titles — 1986-87, 1988-89, 1989-90, 1992-93, 1993-94, 1994-95, 1995-96, 1997-98, 1999-00, 2001-02, 2002-03 — plus a district title in 1980-81, and no sectional, super-sectional or state-qualifier code anywhere in the file. The Blue Bullets have reached the sectional round eleven times and lost there eleven times.
Nine of those eleven regionals fell between 1986 and 2003, including four straight from 1992 through 1996. The last one was 2002-03, twenty-three years ago.
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 →
