In his debut season as the assistant coach of Loyola Chicago’s men’s volleyball team, Dalton Solbrig helped coach the Ramblers to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2015, fourth MIVA Tournament Championship and eighth regular season title.
With head coach Shane Davis and associate head coach Kyle Exline back in the Maroon and Gold, 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 went 8-3 versus AVCA Top 20 opponents, including four ranked wins over nonconference foes.
The Ramblers’ 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 (one first team, two second team and one honorable mention), three All-MIVA Tournament selections – and the tournament MVP – three College Sports Communicators Academic All-District members, one CSC Academic All-American At-Large First Teamer, one MIVA Player of the Year, and the AVCA Team Academic Award.
As Loyola's international recruiting coordinator, Solbrig helped sign two global commits to the 2026 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.
