West Central Heat Volleyball: 2026 Schedule, Results and Roster
West Central Heat · Biggsville, Illinois
Latest result: 2-0 through August 27. Now 2-0. Next: at West Prairie, Monday September 7, 6:00.
2026: 2-0 · Coach: Stephanie Higgins · 2025: 14-14, third in the Lincoln Trail
The only area team with an unbeaten record, from the smallest school on this site — and one that finished third in the conference last season without anyone much noticing.
2026 so far
- Aug 24 — won at Bushnell-Prairie City, 2-0
One match played, and a lighter opening fortnight than most.
The September 1 match at Galesburg Christian is unconfirmed — the school does not appear in any results database we can reach, and no score has been published. The 2-0 record runs only to August 27.
Third in the conference
West Central went 14-14 overall but 7-3 in the Lincoln Trail in 2025 — third place, behind only ROWVA/Williamsfield and Wethersfield, the two programmes that won thirty matches each.
Split records tell you something. A .500 overall mark with a 7-3 conference record means the Heat handled their league and struggled outside it.
The postseason ended on October 28, losing to Brimfield in three.
The roster
Four seniors: libero Addy Burrell, defensive specialist Corri Dement, right side Cora Kaup and Gabby Smith.
Two juniors carry the front court — Lilly Higgins (outside/middle) and setter Rylie Ferguson.
Lilly Higgins is also a name from the softball team: she was the freshman who drove in a run in the sectional final that knocked out the defending state champions in May.
Joshua Higgins and Jacinda Hill assist.
September schedule
| Date | Opponent | Site |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 27 | Galesburg Christian | Home |
| Sept 1 | at Galesburg Christian | Away |
| Sept 7 | at West Prairie | Away |
| Sept 8 | at ROWVA/Williamsfield † | Away |
| Sept 15 | Hamilton/Warsaw | Home |
| Sept 16 | Wethersfield † | Home |
| Sept 21 | at Ridgewood † | Away |
| Sept 23 | Galva † | Home |
| Sept 28 | at ROWVA/Williamsfield † | Away |
† Lincoln Trail Conference.
The Heat play ROWVA/Williamsfield twice in three weeks — September 8 and September 28 — with Wethersfield at home in between on the 16th. That is the defending champions and the runners-up, three times in twenty days.
The softball comparison
Worth stating plainly, because it frames what a good season looks like at this school.
West Central softball went 33-2-1 in 2026 with a 28-game winning streak and a 12-0 conference record, then beat the defending Class 1A state champions 5-1 in the sectional final before losing a super-sectional 6-5.
Softball is 154-67 all-time at West Central. Volleyball is 146-152.
The athletes overlap heavily at a school of 215 students. What softball has built is the standard the volleyball programme is measured against.
The school
West Central is in Biggsville, population 300, in Henderson County — the only area school outside Knox and Warren counties, and the smallest on this site at 215 students.
It is the product of five separate high schools merging across 110 years, ending with the 2005 union of Union High School and Southern High School.
The football team plays eight-man and won the I8FA state championship in 2022. More on the Heat →
The postseason
State semifinals Friday, November 13, finals Saturday, November 14, at CEFCU Arena in Normal, Class 1A first at 9:00am.
October schedule
| Date | Opponent | Site | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 5 | Abingdon-Avon † | Home | 6:00 |
| Oct 8 | Cuba/Spoon River Valley | Home | 6:00 |
| Oct 12 | Knoxville † | Home | 7:00 |
| Oct 14 | at Bureau Valley † | Away | 7:00 |
| Oct 19 | at United † | Away | 7:00 |
† Lincoln Trail Conference.
Five matches in October — the shortest slate of any team in the conference, and three of them at home.
One regional, in 2019
West Central’s volleyball history is short, because the school itself only dates to 2005.
The IHSA has the programme at 146-152-2 with a single regional championship: 2018-19, in Class 2A.
No sectional titles, no state appearances.
Six coaches in nineteen years
Nancy Gibb started the programme in 2007. Carrie Todd had it from 2009 to 2015. Alicia Anderson coached from 2015 to 2021, taking in the 2019 regional title — the longest tenure the programme has had.
Then Rosemarie Griffin, Victoria Tapscott, and Kristen Mynatt in 2024, before Stephanie Higgins.
Note that Mynatt now coaches at Monmouth-Roseville — the two schools swapped a coach two seasons ago.
2025’s notable wins
West Central’s 14-14 season included wins over Knoxville, Monmouth-Roseville and Monmouth United twice — four victories against area rivals, which is a good measure of a team that finished third in the conference.
One inconsistency worth flagging: the IHSA totals West Central at “10 years” while listing thirteen seasons of results above it.
A record book with eight years missing
West Central’s IHSA volleyball file requires more caveats than any other page on this site except Stark County, and we would rather set them out than quote a number that misleads.
First, the identification. The IHSA files this program as “Biggsville (West Central)” — the Heat. There is a second, unrelated West Central High School in Winchester, filed separately, and searches for “West Central volleyball Illinois” routinely return the wrong one. Everything below is the Biggsville school.
The printed record is 146-152-2, a .490 percentage across 10 recorded seasons. That is not an all-time mark. Eight consecutive seasons carry a coach name and no win-loss totals at all: 2007-08 and 2008-09 under Nancy Gibb, then 2009-10 through 2014-15 under Carrie Todd. West Central’s recorded volleyball history effectively begins in 2015-16. And the file stops at 2024-25 — no 2025-26 season has been submitted.
So the honest statement is that the Heat’s true all-time record is not published anywhere we can find, and the .490 describes a decade in the middle of a longer history.
What the record does confirm is a Class 2A regional championship in 2018-19, won by a 21-13 team under Alicia Anderson. That is the program’s only IHSA hardware — no sectional, no super-sectional, no state finals appearance.
A coaching change, and how it fits
MaxPreps lists Stephanie Higgins as head coach for 2026, with Joshua Higgins and Jacinda Hill assisting. The IHSA’s last coach of record is Kristen Mynatt in 2024-25.
There is a reason to believe the change is real even though we have it from one source. Mynatt now appears as head coach at Monmouth-Roseville, whose own last IHSA coach of record was Lissa Schreck. One vacancy created, one vacancy filled, and the two listings are consistent with each other. That is circumstantial rather than confirmed, and we would like a phone call to settle it — but it is more than a bare single-source claim.
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 →
