A pregame team huddle featuring Alia Schoonover (8) and Layla Hoying (14), wearing a warmup. Hoying missed Ohio State’s 3-2 win over Youngstown State on Sept. 13 due to injury. Credit: Roman Gabriel | Freelance Photographer.

After over half a decade of playing volleyball together, Ohio State freshmen Alia Schoonover and Layla Hoying are experiencing something new this year: going to the same school.

Schoonover and Hoying began playing together at Mintonette Sports Volleyball Club, a club team out of Columbus, Ohio, when they were around 11-years-old. From then until now, the two were teammates on their club team and are once again at Ohio State.

Their path from Mintonette to Ohio State adds another chapter to a connection that has developed between the Columbus-area club team and the Buckeyes over the past several years.

Head coach Jen Flynn Oldenburg said Ohio State did not intentionally create the relationship. And yet, it has steadily grown as Mintonette has continued to develop high-level volleyball players in central Ohio.

“It was not a relationship I found,” Oldenburg said. “It was something that developed over the years.”

Three former Mintonette players joined the Buckeyes from 2014-2019, before Oldenburg was hired in 2020.

Prior to coaching the Buckeyes, Oldenburg had experience with Mintonette’s program. She was an assistant coach on the U.S. Girls Youth National Team in 2019, which featured Mintonette and future Ohio State players Emily Londot and Sydney Taylor.

Schoonover and Hoying have become the eighth and ninth players to join the Buckeyes from Mintonette’s program.

Oldenburg said recruiting local players is important when they have the talent to compete at the Big Ten level.

“I think you want to retain the local talent,” Oldenburg said. “You want to keep the best kids in Ohio and bring them to Ohio State.”

For Schoonover and Hoying, Mintonette provided experience against some of the best club teams in the country before they even reached college.

“Everyone was committed to a big D1 school,” Schoonover said.?

Schoonover played eight years with Mintonette, while Hoying played six. Their roster shifted little from year to year, allowing many of the same players to stay together throughout their club careers. The group eventually won two AAU national championships, which inspired Hoying’s collegiate volleyball aspirations.?

“For me, it was always the dream, but I think it became more of a reality for both of us when our team had our first national title, which was when we were 14 [-years-old],” Hoying said.

Despite Mintonette’s proximity to Ohio State, which is around a twenty minute drive to campus, Schoonover and Hoying said Mintonette owner and club director, Max Miller, focused on finding the right college for each player, even if that school was not Ohio State.

Still, Schoonover and Hoying chose Ohio State as their families were nearby, they had grown up attending Ohio State events and understood what playing for the Buckeyes meant.

The familiarity extended to the coaching staff.?

Londot, a former Mintonette player and an Ohio State standout from 2020-24, has taken on a new role with the Buckeyes as the director of player development.

Schoonover and Hoying said seeing someone they once knew from the Mintonette gym now working with them at Ohio State is another reminder of the connection between the two programs.

“It was an easy transition for us,” Hoying said. “It was like one family to another family.”

Oldenburg, however, said the club a player comes from doesn’t determine whether Ohio State recruits her.

“You want the best talent,” Oldenburg said.

For Schoonover and Hoying, the transition has included more than adjusting to a higher level of volleyball.

While the two players spent most of their childhoods together and attended different schools, which created a different experience, they now attend classes together and spend most of their days around the same team.

Schoonover and Hoying described Mintonette as a family and said Ohio State has a similar culture.?

Their years together have also created an understanding on the court that Oldenburg said does not require much explanation.

She said the two already know what the other is capable of and can rely on experiences they shared before arriving at Ohio State.

“We grew up together,” Schoonover said. “We grew up in the gym.”