Published for NIVA BB4 fans — October 2026
By Toxlay Sports Editorial Team · Last updated October 24, 2026
🏐 NIVA BB4 Fans — Your Mishawaka Pride Is Waiting!
From the Mishawaka Fieldhouse to the VLA Cup floor, BB4 has been Northern Indiana’s women’s pro side — Best of the Midwest champions, two VLA Cups deep, and led by a setter whose number is the one every BB4 fan knows. Wear the black and purple and ride with BB4.
The Club
Indiana NIVA BB4 is the adult women’s team of NIVA — the Northern Indiana Volleyball Association — based in Mishawaka, Indiana, where the club trains at the Mishawaka Fieldhouse, 6155 Veterans Parkway. BB4 carries the club’s published hashtag #NIVATRAINED and the purple brand color of the NIVA program into the Volleyball League of America, where it stands as one of Indiana’s two listed women’s teams alongside Indianapolis’s Naptown Nitro. The look is sharp and simple: a black short-sleeve jersey with a small white VLA chest wordmark and a large white front number, with “NIVA BB4” printed in white above the number on the back — the team name, never a surname — worn with black shorts and white knee pads, and a grey and white contrast shirt for the libero. One honest note up front, because BB4 fans deserve it straight: the club has not published a full numbered roster, so this guide names its stars and prints only the one jersey number that is verified — setter Ally VanEekeren’s 17. Searching for a NIVA BB4 jersey, the latest BB4 schedule or BB4 tickets? Start with the question Mishawaka asks all winter: when does BB4 play?
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Last Season (2026): What Is Documented
Here is the honest picture of BB4’s most recent season: no BB4 result, record, standing or honor from 2026 is published anywhere found. The league team page carries no results, and BB4 does not appear in the league’s published Women’s Championship pool for the season-closing weekend. What is documented is that the team existed and was playing in the current era — the club’s own site, on a coach bio page current in 2026, states that Rachel Ferguson “is currently playing professional volleyball with NIVA BB4.” The league context around that silence is real enough: the 2026 women’s season ran January through May 2026 and closed at the VLA Championships, May 22–24, 2026, in Orlando, Florida, inside the USAV Open Nationals, with a Women’s Tier 1 of twelve teams announced for 2027. BB4’s own 2027 tier assignment is not published, so January 2027 is a date to watch rather than a confirmed berth. The documented BB4 story, the one with silverware in it, sits a little earlier — and it is worth telling properly, because it is the foundation this team is built on.
Best Players Right Now
Ally VanEekeren, Setter (#17) — The one BB4 number that is verified, and the player this guide is built around. VanEekeren’s 17 is confirmed on the front of her BB4 jersey in the club’s January 2024 Dive Preseason All-Tournament post dedicated to her, and again on the back of her jersey on the cover of the club’s May 2024 reel. She is the setter of the BB4 side, the distributor everything runs through, and later — in September 2024 — she signed with the Nashville Villains, which tells you how highly the wider VLA rated her game. Her college number belongs to her college career and is never printed here as a BB4 number.
Mary O’Brien — Named on the club’s May 2024 player cards, the set of introductions that forms the core of the documented BB4 roster. O’Brien is one of the names every BB4 fan from that era will recognize, a foundation piece of the side that went to the May 2024 VLA Cup.
Melissa Mazur — Another name from the May 2024 player cards, and another foundation piece of the BB4 roster. Mazur’s name sits alongside VanEekeren’s and O’Brien’s on the cards that introduced the team to its own fans.
Rachel Ferguson, Libero — The most decorated player ever tied to BB4, and the proof that this is a genuine adult professional side. Ferguson’s official NIVA staff bio states she is currently playing professional volleyball with NIVA BB4. Her résumé: starting varsity libero all four years at Penn High School, NIC MVP as a senior, ranked 19th in the state of Indiana, Indiana North Junior All-Star as a junior and a senior; at IUPUI she tied the program record for digs in a three-set match with 25 and was named Horizon League Defensive Player of the Week; at South Alabama she was the 2022 Sun Belt Conference Libero of the Year and First Team All-Conference, holds the school record for digs per set at 4.52, passed 2,000 career digs, and was part of the squad that won South Alabama’s first-ever Sun Belt Tournament title and first NCAA Tournament appearance in 2021. Her BB4 jersey number is not published anywhere, so none is printed here.
Linnea Rohrsen — Named on the May 2024 player cards, part of the documented BB4 roster that carried the team into its second VLA Cup.
Maggie Gibson — Named on the May 2024 player cards, another member of the documented BB4 roster.
Kiana Schmitt — Named on the May 2024 player cards, part of the BB4 side that represented Mishawaka on the VLA floor.
Bailey Neuberger — Named on the May 2024 player cards, another documented member of the BB4 roster.
Kelly Wolinetz — Named on the May 2024 player cards, part of the BB4 roster from the club’s own introductions.
Delainee Gibson — Named on the May 2024 player cards, completing the documented BB4 roster alongside the names above.
Star Spotlight: Stories You Should Know
The number everyone knows. In a team whose full numbered roster has never been published, one number still cuts through: 17. Ally VanEekeren’s BB4 17 is the one verified print in the whole story — on the front of her jersey in the January 2024 Dive Preseason All-Tournament post, and on the back in the May 2024 reel cover. Setters do not always get the glory, but every BB4 attack in that era ran through VanEekeren’s hands, and the wider league noticed: by September 2024 she had signed with Nashville. When BB4 fans talk about the team’s identity, they start with the setter in 17.
Best of the Midwest. The first piece of BB4 silverware in the documented story came on March 24, 2024, when the team photo went up celebrating BB4 as Best of the Midwest Champions. It is the kind of title that tells you what this program is: not a junior outfit borrowing a name, but an adult side winning regional honors against grown competition, out of a club whose whole identity — #NIVATRAINED — is built on development paying off at the top level.
Two VLA Cups. BB4’s national story runs through the VLA Cup twice: a debut appearance in 2023, and a return in May 2024, when the club’s own account had the team opening its Cup run against the Chicago Frost. Two Cups in two years, from a program based in Mishawaka, Indiana — a town far better known for its junior pipeline than for professional volleyball, and BB4 is the reason that is changing.
The libero with the Sun Belt crown. Rachel Ferguson’s résumé reads like a player who should be the most famous name on any roster she joins: NIC MVP, a program digs record at IUPUI, Sun Belt Libero of the Year at South Alabama, 2,000-plus career digs, and a conference title and NCAA appearance that were both program firsts. That she plays for BB4 — while also coaching in the NIVA program since 2023 — is the clearest possible proof of what this team is: a real professional side, staffed by players who have already proved themselves at the highest college level.
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Melissa Mazur — NIVA BB4 Style Jersey
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Mazur’s black BB4 look — the NIVA BB4 back print, no number claimed.
This Season (2026-27): Watching January
The honest state of play for BB4 heading into the new season is this: the club’s Instagram account has been dormant since May 2024, the league team page still reads “team rosters coming soon,” and no BB4 2027 roster, fixture list, signing or announcement is published anywhere found. What is certain is the league framework: the 2027 VLA season opens in January 2027, and the new Women’s Tier 1, a twelve-team top flight, debuts league-wide at the same time, with promotion and relegation splitting the women’s field for the first time. BB4’s own tier assignment is not published, so January is a target to watch rather than a confirmed berth — but a program with a Best of the Midwest title, two VLA Cups and a Sun Belt Libero of the Year on its books has every reason to be in the conversation. The first place any new BB4 roster will appear is the league team page, and this guide will be updated the moment it posts. BB4 is not rebuilding. It is waiting for its next published chapter.
Mark Your Calendar: The Road Ahead
Circle the dates ahead, BB4 fans — the next league season comes first — then relive the documented weekends that built this team:
- January 2027 — The 2027 VLA season opens: League play resumes and the Women’s Tier 1 debuts league-wide. BB4’s exact fixtures and tier assignment will be confirmed when the VLA publishes its schedule.
- Relive it — March 24, 2024, Best of the Midwest champions: The team photo that celebrated BB4’s regional title — the first documented silverware in the adult team’s story.
- Relive it — May 2024, the second VLA Cup: BB4’s return to the VLA Cup, opening its run against the Chicago Frost.
- Relive it — January 2024, the Dive Preseason: The All-Tournament post dedicated to setter Ally VanEekeren — the post that verified the 17 BB4 fans know by heart.
- Relive it — 2023, the VLA Cup debut: BB4’s first appearance on the VLA Cup floor, the start of the adult team’s national story.
Biggest Rivalries — The Wars
1. Chicago Frost — the Cup opener. The one documented BB4 meeting with an opponent, and it came with the whole VLA watching: BB4 opened its May 2024 VLA Cup run against the Chicago Frost. No result is published for that match, so no winner is claimed here — but a Cup opener against one of the league’s established Chicago sides is exactly the kind of fixture rivalries are built on, and the Frost are the first name on BB4’s dance card whenever the two meet again.
2. Naptown Nitro — the Indiana storyline. No BB4 fixture against Nitro is published, so this is peer context rather than a documented rivalry — but it is the storyline Indiana volleyball fans want most: the state’s two listed VLA women’s teams, Mishawaka against Indianapolis, sharing a state and a league. The first published meeting between them, whenever it comes, will be the biggest regular-season date on either club’s calendar.
3. The Chicago clubs — the regional measuring stick. Beyond the Frost, the Chicago field — Sweedies, Southside XP and the rest of the Windy City contingent — is the standard BB4 measures itself against in the Midwest women’s field. BB4’s Cup history already runs through Chicago opposition; the regional pecking order gets settled there.
4. Midwest Magic & West Michigan Queens — the Midwest field. The rest of the documented regional peer group: the Chicago-based Magic, who went on to win the 2026 North Divisional Cup, and the Queens of West Michigan, another Central-side program BB4 would measure itself against. Until fixtures are published, these are the teams on BB4’s horizon — the field the next chapter will be written against.
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Frequently Asked Questions
When do the NIVA BB4 women play next?
No BB4 fixture is published anywhere found. The 2027 VLA season opens in January 2027, with the Women’s Tier 1 debuting league-wide, and BB4’s exact fixtures and tier assignment will be confirmed when the VLA publishes its schedule.
Where do the NIVA BB4 women play?
The team is based in Mishawaka, Indiana, where the NIVA club trains at the Mishawaka Fieldhouse, 6155 Veterans Parkway. The team’s own VLA match venue is not separately published.
Who are the NIVA BB4 women’s star players?
Setter Ally VanEekeren, whose 17 is the club’s one verified jersey number; Mary O’Brien and Melissa Mazur, named on the club’s May 2024 player cards; and libero Rachel Ferguson, the 2022 Sun Belt Conference Libero of the Year. No other BB4 jersey number is published, so none is printed in this guide.
Where can I buy NIVA BB4 fan gear?
Toxlay Sports offers fan-inspired apparel for NIVA supporters — fan-designed gear made for real fans. Note that fan-inspired apparel is not official VLA licensed merchandise.
Sources: Volleyball League of America (usavla.com), the NIVA club’s official channels and announcements — schedules and rosters checked October 2026.
#NIVATRAINED — Mishawaka’s pro side is just getting started.
