How Auburn volleyball’s three transfer portal signees fit into the fold with the Tigers for 2026
Auburn has picked up three transfers, all of them from Power Four programs and all of them seeming plenty capable of making an instant impact. Here’s a look at how they fit into the puzzle.
Auburn volleyball has the core it can build around. The Tigers have their centerpiece, the All-SEC outside hitter Lauren Dreves. They have an experienced setter, Shanelle Puetz, coming back. They have height, returning 6-foot-3 Grace Havlicek, 6-foot-2 Kate Mansfield and 6-foot-3 Eden Bower — with 6-foot-4 Emma Moore getting healthy again and two 6-foot-3 early enrollees on campus, among others.
But they missed the NCAA Tournament last year, so it’d make sense that, in this transfer portal window, the staff would go after some experienced players to shake up the spring and push for playing time — while also filling necessary gaps on the roster. Thus: Auburn volleyball signed three players out of the transfer portal last week, and all three of them are from Power Four schools, all three of them have experience doing what head coach Brent Crouch was looking for, and all three of them step into positions of need for the roster entering the spring.
All three of them also enter three different position groups on the Auburn roster.
Here’s a look at all three of Auburn’s pickups and exactly how the pieces fit into the puzzle for 2026:
Anastasija Ivkovic
Position: Right-side
Previous school: UCLA
Class: Rising junior
Height: 6-foot-3
While Dreves is back as Auburn’s top outside hitter, Auburn lost to graduation its two other top hitters from 2025: Senior right-side Bel Zimmerman and grad transfer outside hitter Liz Markovska.
Auburn has other arms, like rising sophomore Greer Chambless and some talented freshman recruits — but they’re mostly young. Crouch doesn’t want to put the youngsters on the right side if he can avoid it, because that’s throwing them into the wolves: Every volleyball team’s best attacker plays on the left side of the court, so the right-side hitter goes up against the other team’s ace, over and over again during a match. Crouch wanted someone with experience to step into Zimmerman’s position group on the right, so the youngsters can go try to replace Markovska and play with Dreves over on the left.
So Crouch went into the portal looking for: