Illinois State will introduce Leah Johnson as the 7th head coach in the history of their women’s volleyball program at a press conference on Wednesday. She replaces Melissa Myers, who resigned in June to ‘pursue professional opportunities outside of coaching.’
Johnson comes to Illinois State from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, which is about 2 hours south near St. Louis.
“Under Leah’s leadership, the SIUE volleyball program has been outstanding in the classroom and on the court,” said SIUE Director of Athletics Dr. Brad Hewitt. “She has been a great mentor for SIUE’s volleyball student-athletes, and we wish her well in her next challenge.”
“It was our hope that we build our volleyball program from the ground up to be competitive in every way,” said Hewitt. “Leah has been a guiding force over the past six seasons along with her assistant coaches.”
Myers was the coach for the Redbirds for the past nine seasons, accumulating a record of 168-116, which included winning the Missouri Valley Conference regular season and tournament championship in 2014. In that season, the team went undefeated in conference play with a school-record 23-match winning streak. Last season, Illinois State finished with a 17-15 record, including a 9-9 finish in the MVC. They fell to regular season champions Missouri State in the conference semi-finals, but pushed them to 5 sets.
SIUE, in what turns out to be Johnson’s last season there, finished with a 22-8 record – a program record since they joined Division I. They completed the requirements for full, unrestricted Division I membership in the summer of 2012, and have been members of the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) since 2008. SIUE advanced to the OVC Championship game, where they would eventually lose to Murray State in 5 sets – their 3rd 3-2 loss to the champions that season. SIUE’s final RPI ranking, a statistical calculation of a team’s success based on their record and the record of their opponents, was #100 – 30 spots better than Illinois State’s.
SIUE will retain assistant coaches Kendall Paulus and Luke Young for the 2017 seasons, with Paulus serving as acting head coach and Young as associate head coach. The school says they’ll begin a national search this fall for a permanent head coach, which they hope to have in place by the fall of 2017.
“We believe it is important for the sake of stability and familiarity for our current and incoming student-athletes to compete and flourish under Kendall and Luke rather than further changing the coaching staff,” said Hewitt. “I also have asked Senior Woman Administrator Katie Zingg to step in as the sports administrator for volleyball with oversight of day-to-day operations for the program.”
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