Winona State’s women’s volleyball were not able to play their normal fall 2020- 21 season due to COVID-19; however, the Warriors have been able to play a few scrimmages starting back in March.
Middle blocker for the Winona State’s volleyball team, Kaleigh Beehler, says the team has been handling COVID well and are looking on the bright side of it.
“Our team is adjusting well by practicing in masks and getting tested regularly,” Beehler said “Fortunately, we are able to have scrimmages in our spring season to allow us to compete against other teams without it affecting eligibility.”
Beehler has been a part of the Winona State volleyball team for three years, ever since her freshman year. Beehler is from Maple Lake, Minnesota and began her volleyball career when she was just eight-years old.
“I started playing volleyball when I was about eight-years old,” Beehler said. “I went to Maple Lake growing up, and they offered volleyball camps at a young age.”
Because of her friends Beehler was involved in other sports than just volleyball growing up, and she owes it to them that she is still playing.
“All of my friends were in sports too and were just as competitive as I was, so playing as many sports as I could helped me grow my volleyball skills as well,” Beehler said. “I was a three-sport athlete throughout high school, along with volleyball I also played basketball and track and field.”
“I knew I wanted to continue volleyball as I started getting older and realizing how much potential my team had,” Beehler said.
After high school, Beehler said she had to make the decision where to go to school.
She knew she wanted to continue with volleyball and that was the most important factor in deciding where she would end up.
Winona State offered Beehler everything she was looking for.

“As far as college, I knew I wanted to play in the NSIC [Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference] because it is the best division II volleyball conference in the nation, and I lived in a somewhat central location to many of the universities where home was not too far away,” Beehler said. “The coaching staff also helped me make my decision to come here because I knew that they have high expectations and the tools to help me get to the highest level of play that I could be.”
Other than volleyball, Winona State also checked off other boxes Beehler was looking for in a university.
“Winona State had everything I was looking for in a college,” Beehler said. “As a business major, they are a well-known university for resources to learn and grow as a student; plus, the campus was beautiful and gave me plenty of activities to do around the town and on campus.”
Who Beehler was sharing a court and team name with has always been an important thing to her and it continued on into her college years.
“Before coming to Winona, I was most excited about the team culture that I could see from their games and practices, to how the players were as people,” Beehler said.
After this year, Beehler will have one more year as a Warrior, and she is very excited to see what that will hold.
“This fall I am personally looking forward to being able to play against other teams for a regular season,” Beehler said.
After coming back from an ACL injury my sophomore year, I missed playing with my teammates and the atmosphere that comes with our level of competition in the NSIC.”