The forfeit tally for the San Jose State women’s volleyball team rose to seven Friday, when Wyoming, as expected, opted out of its road game next week amid reports that the Spartans’ roster contains a transgender player.

It won’t go to eight, however. San Diego State hosts the Spartans at noon Saturday at Peterson Gym.

“We love playing the sport of volleyball,” a statement from SDSU’s team said. “We remain focused on continuing our strong start to the season and competing for a Mountain West championship. Our decision to play is not intended to be any kind of statement besides demonstrating our commitment to volleyball.”

What began as another, anonymous Mountain West volleyball season has been thrust into the national spotlight, the latest rallying point for opponents of transgender athletes in women’s sports. First, Southern Utah refused to play San Jose State in a nonconference tournament. Then four Mountain West teams forfeited as well — Utah State and Nevada in their only scheduled matches, Boise State and Wyoming for both home and road dates.

Whether Peterson Gym becomes a flash point Saturday is uncertain.

SDSU administrators have held numerous planning meetings since late September, knowing they were hosting the Spartans in November. With several hundred advance tickets sold, a rarity for volleyball, Athletic Director John David Wicker said there will be “an enhanced event management package” that includes extra personnel and security screening.

“It’s definitely something we’ve prepared for because it has such a large national conversation,” Wicker said. “At the same time, it’s been a great opportunity to engage with our student-athletes. This is real-world stuff we’re able to discuss and make educated decisions about. It’s why we’re here. This is about learning how to be an adult.”

San Jose State Athletic Director Jeff Konya is skipping the football team’s game at Oregon State to attend Saturdays match, something ADs almost never do. The volleyball team has been traveling this season with a university police officer as well as an athletic administrator.

Our volleyball team members have earned the right to compete, a statement from San Jose State said, and we are deeply disappointed for them and with them that they are being denied those opportunities through cancellations and forfeits. We are also proud of how they have persevered through these challenges on the court.

The story went national six weeks ago, when starting setter Brooke Slusser joined a federal lawsuit contesting the NCAA’s policy for transgender athletes in women’s sports. In it, she identified starting senior outside hitter Blaire Fleming, who transferred to San Jose State from Coastal Carolina in 2022, as transgender.

The NCAA defers to a sport’s national federation for transgender policy, and USA Volleyball allows athletes on women’s teams who have transitioned from male to female as long as levels of muscle-building testosterone are under certain thresholds, typically achieved through hormone suppressants.

Critics argue that they retain irreversible advantages from male puberty and the mandated testosterone levels are still several times higher than that of the average female. Others say the science isn’t definitive and banning transgender athletes amounts to discrimination.

Some players on forfeiting teams have been photographed in T-shirts that say: “BOYcott.”

On the day it was supposed to play San Jose State, Nevada’s team attended a rally at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center attended by an estimated 400 supporters.

“I would like to tell girls and women who are in sports that they matter,” Wolf Pack captain Sia Liilii told KOLO-TV in Reno. “They have a voice. And that they don’t have to play against biological males.”

It became a campaign issue for President-elect Donald Trump, who made apparent references to San Jose State’s volleyball team at a town hall event in Georgia last month. He vowed: “We stop it, we stop it, we absolutely stop it. You can’t have it. You just ban it. The president bans it. You just don’t let it happen.”

The saga took another twist two weeks ago, when Spartans associate head coach Melissa Batie-Smoose reportedly filed a 33-page Title IX complaint with the university, claiming it had violated the Title IX rights of the team’s other 18 players by giving Fleming preferential treatment. Quillette, an online magazine based in Australia, obtained a copy of the complaint and published a lengthy story about it.

One incident Batie-Smoose describes is from an Oct. 3 match at Colorado State. The night before, she said Fleming and a Spartans teammate met with a Colorado State player, shared the team’s scouting report and schemed to create lanes for the player to hit spikes targeting Slusser, who has claimed Fleming’s hard spikes are a safety issue.

According to Batie-Smoose, the Spartans teammate, who was not identified by Quillette, reported the incident to the coaches a few days later.

San Jose State head coach Todd Kress told ESPN the Quillette story is “littered with lies.” He confirmed a player told him Fleming met with a CSU player but says “it was totally a joke … just talking and venting because, you know, they were frustrated with the situation.”

Kress said he and CSU coach Emily Kohan both watched film from the Rams’ 3-0 win.

“Neither one of us saw anything that brought to our attention that there was any foul play at hand,” Kress told ESPN.

Four days after Batie-Smoose submitted her complaint, and just hours before a home match against New Mexico, the assistant coach was suspended indefinitely. The university has confirmed she is not with the team at this time but did not offer a reason. Batie-Smoose told World, a Christian website, that she was disciplined for violating student privacy regulations.

“I had to do it,” Batie-Smoose told World about her Title IX complaint. “I couldn’t take it for one more minute. … This is why coaches don’t take a stance: They get suspended. It’s a career-ender. But we have to do what’s right to save women’s sports. … I had to do the right thing so evil would not prevail.”

Minutes after the match last Saturday, Slusser tweeted: “My assistant coach spoke truth to protect my team. Then … they fire her. They took away the only safe space we had in the program. Because she knew that it was right to stand up for the 18 women on the team. Not one man.”

San Jose State is no longer making Kress or players available to the media. Slusser has granted interviews independently. She offered a cryptic comment to the New York Post this week in the wake of Batie-Smoose’s suspension, saying: “I don’t think the school sees how much they just basically ruined this program by taking Melissa away from us. So, who knows what’s to come in the future (with regard) to what our team will do or how we will react from this. As of right now, tensions are very high for my team with how angry we are now that Melissa’s gone. Emotions are through the roof right now.”

Her comments have spawned speculation that San Jose State players might stage their own walkout, especially if, as Batie-Smoose suggested in her complaint, the overwhelming majority of players take issue with having a transgender athlete on the roster.

The Spartans are only 5-4 on the court in the Mountain West, but the six conference forfeits elevate their overall record to 11-4 with three matches remaining, second place behind 11-2 Colorado State. SDSU, which won 3-0 at San Jose State a month ago, is in fifth at 8-5.

The regular season ends Nov. 23. The top six teams qualify for the conference tournament in Las Vegas during Thanksgiving week, with the winner receiving an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.