Inside Gregory Gymnasium in Austin, Texas, Avry Tatum sat at a podium. To her right was senior outside hitter Candela Alonso-Corcelles, and to her left was Indiana volleyball head coach Steve Aird.
In front of reporters, Tatum held back tears — the Hoosiers had just fallen to the University of Texas at Austin in the NCAA Tournament regional semifinals Dec. 12, marking the senior opposite hitter’s final match as a collegiate athlete.
Of the four questions asked at the postgame press conference after the loss, none were for Tatum. After Aird made an opening statement, he answered three questions, while Alonso-Corcelles answered one. Tatum didn’t speak for the nearly six minutes she sat with Alonso-Corcelles and Aird, but her tears and head nods spoke louder than words could.
“I think the pain of the end of the year is sometimes commensurate with how much you love the group,” Aird said. “And that’s the fun part — they’re a really connected team.”
When Aird said this, Tatum closed her eyes but opened them a moment later to look at Alonso-Corcelles, who gave Tatum a slight smile and put her hand on her visibly upset teammate. The teammate she spent the last three seasons with at Indiana. The teammate she broke records alongside. The teammate she made history with.
The loss to Texas ended Indiana’s 25-8 2025 season, marking the winningest season in program history. The Hoosiers finished fifth in the Big Ten standings, their highest placement since 1999 when they finished tied for fifth. They recorded wins over four teams ranked in the American Volleyball Coaches Association top 25.
“Had an unbelievable season and made history and given a little bit of time and space, I think they’ll look back with tremendous pride at the fact that they did something that no other Indiana program has ever been able to do,” Aird said.
But all the record breaking was after seasons where Indiana consistently fell in the middle of the pack in the Big Ten, only finishing in the top half of the conference once since 1999, which was in 2023.
In Alonso-Corcelles' first season in Bloomington in 2022, Indiana went 16-16, with just a 9-11 conference record. Then, Tatum transferred to Indiana, and the Hoosiers went 21-12 to earn the program’s sixth 20-win season.
However, Tatum and Alonso-Corcelles' junior season was another of mediocrity, as Indiana went 15-15 with an 8-12 Big Ten record. That put the Hoosiers in a tie for 10th in the conference standings.
At the end of the 2024 season, there were questions surrounding Indiana’s roster makeup. Seven freshmen and one transfer were coming to Bloomington, while nine other players left the program. But Tatum and Alonso-Corcelles, who led the team in points scored per set, stayed.
They stayed and became a part of the winningest season in program history. And not only did they make history for the program, but in doing so, they became one of the most storied duos in program history.
When Alonso-Corcelles came to Bloomington as a freshman, she made an immediate impact. She started in 26 of the Hoosiers’ 32 matches and recorded 231 kills. And from there, she became a core part of the Hoosiers’ lineup.
In her four-year career at Indiana, Alonso-Corcelles played in all but one match. With the Hoosiers’ Nov. 26 win over Illinois, she became the winningest player in program history. Alonso-Corcelles and Indiana recorded two more wins after the victory over Illinois, over the University of Toledo and the University of Colorado Boulder in the NCAA Tournament first and second rounds, which pushed her win total to 77.
After her four seasons, Alonso-Corcelles is seventh in program history for all-time kills with 1425, spearheaded by her career-high 441 kills this season.
While Tatum, who transferred from the University of Cincinnati after her freshman year, didn’t reach the program-record 77 wins that Alonso-Corcelles did, she made her mark on the program in another way — becoming an AVCA All-American honorable mention.
Before Tatum, only four Hoosiers had ever earned All-American honors. Tatum — along with freshman setter Teodora Kričković — was named an All-American honorable mention after she recorded 389 kills off a .320 hitting percentage.
Alonso-Corcelles and Tatum’s senior seasons led them to become the first two Hoosiers ever selected in the Major League Volleyball Draft. On Nov. 24, Alonso-Corcelles was picked by the Grand Rapids Rise in the second round, while Tatum was drafted in the fourth round by the Columbus Fury.
With their legacies cemented in program history, the two leave gaping holes in the Hoosiers’ roster, but that didn’t stop Alonso-Corcelles from looking at the future for her now former team after its loss to Texas.
Despite its youth, Alonso-Corcelles said the maturity and connectivity of the current players on Indiana’s squad can help them to a national championship. It’s not just something Alonso-Corcelles thinks will happen, but something she said she knows will happen.
But she was part of what got Indiana to that point. As veterans this season, she and Tatum were the core of that development that got the Hoosiers their historic season and what can shape Indiana for years to come.
“We rewrote the record books across the board,” Aird said. “So much of it was because of what the two young women beside me, who will go on and play professionally and have fantastic careers and will be on the wall at Wilkinson Hall in Bloomington forever. And what they did this year will never be taken away from them.”
Follow reporters Savannah Slone (@savrivers06 and srslone@iu.edu) and Kasey Watkins (@KaseyWatki8773 and kaslwatk@iu.edu) for updates throughout the Indiana volleyball offseason.
