Assistant coach Dalton Solbrig enters his third season at Loyola Chicago in 2027 after joining the program in December 2024.
Alongside head coach Shane Davis and associate head coach Kyle Exline, Solbrig helped coach the Ramblers to their second consecutive, fifth overall, NCAA National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship appearance in 2026. In the new 12-team expansion era, Loyola secured the program’s first NCAA tournament win since 2015 with a 3-0 sweep of Saint Francis (Pa.) to advance to the regional finals against Long Beach State.
The Ramblers finished 21-9 overall and 12-4 in Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) play. Loyola defeated Hawai’i, 3-1, for its first win of the year (Jan. 9). Four months later, the Maroon and Gold were the MIVA Tournament runners-up, making consecutive championship appearances. Five Ramblers earned all-conference honors, three of whom went on to be American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) All-Americans. Off the court, Loyola shined in the classroom as the entire team earned Academic All-MIVA accolades, and junior Aidan Klein tabbed a spot on the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District Team. The program also secured its ninth all-time AVCA Team Academic Award.
In his debut season at Loyola, Solbrig and staff guided Loyola to its best MIVA record (13-3) since 2015 and the first 20-win regular season in two years. The Ramblers posted a 17-1 ledger inside Gentile Arena and had their best record on the road in over a decade, going 8-2. Loyola's defense finished first in the MIVA and third in the country in blocks per set (2.56), with middle blocker Nicodemus Meyer leading the charge and capping his collegiate career as the No. 2 blocker in the NCAA DI-II.
Under this coaching staff, Loyola collected 28 total postseason awards in 2025: 10 Academic All-MIVA picks, four All-MIVA First Teamers, four AVCA All-Americans, three All-MIVA Tournament selections – and the tournament MVP – three College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District members, one CSC Academic All-American At-Large First Teamer and the MIVA Player of the Year, as well as the AVCA Team Academic Award.
As Loyola's international recruiting coordinator, Solbrig helped sign three foreign commits to the 2027 men’s volleyball roster.
Before joining the Ramblers in December 2024, Solbrig served as an assistant coach at Dominican University where he helped lead the team to a NACC regular season and tournament championship, as well as an NCAA Round of 16 appearance in 2024. His mentorship with the team's middles earned two players NACC Second Team All-Conference honors and Solbrig was recognized as part of the NACC Coaching Staff of the Year.
Solbrig gained his first coaching experience at Adversity Volleyball Club in Vernon Hills, Ill. where he coached the boys' and girls' youth teams for the last two years. Preceding his coaching career, Solbrig played professional volleyball for two different teams in Europe.
As a professional volleyball player, Solbrig was a middle blocker and competed with OK Mladost Ribola Kaštela in Croatia, where he won the Croatian League title and was named the best blocker/attacker in 2019-20. Solbrig later played for SVG Lüneburg in Germany, achieving the league's highest hitting percentage for the 2021-22 season.
In his collegiate playing years at University of Hawaii, Solbrig was a standout middle blocker who set the highest hitting percentage in program history and helped his team to a runner-up finish in the 2019 NCAA DI National Championship. He earned a bachelor of science degree in marine biology from Hawaii.
