The legendary Nina Matthies will retire after the Pepperdine beach season, ending a career that included stardom as a player, indoors coach and beach coach. She will be replaced by assistant Marcio Sicoli.
A year ago, Penn hired a new indoors coach. Now she’s gone, hired at Penn State at Russ Rose’s assistant. That and an update on NCAA Division I head-coaching hires and vacancies.
And in men’s volleyball, second-ranked UCLA and third-ranked Hawai’i swept their respective non-conference matches Thursday. Friday’s NCAA Division I-II slate includes 12 matches, highlighted by No. 13 USC at No. 8 Lewis.
Matthies to call it a career: As Pepperdine reported in its news release, “in Matthiesâ six previous seasons on the beach, she has amassed a 112-18 (.861) record and has coached the Waves to all six years of beach postseason events, including AVCA championships titles in 2012 and 2014 and an NCAA runner-up finish in 2017. In 31 indoor seasons between 1983-2013, Matthies had a 590-343 (.632) record and led the Waves to 20 NCAA Tournaments.”
Sicoli has been her assistant the last six years and is perhaps best known for coaching Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor to the 2012 Olympic golf medal and then Walsh Jennings and April Ross in 2016 when they won bronze in his home country of Brazil.
Click here to read the entire Pepperdine news release.
Katie Schumacher-Cawley to Penn State: Neither Penn State nor the Ivy League’s University of Pennsylvania has announced it, but former Penn State player Schumacher-Cawley is going to State College. It comes on the heels of the retirement from college coaching by Penn State associate head coach Salima Rockwell.
The Penn student publication, The Daily Pennsylvanian, reported Thursday that Schumacher-Cawley told her team she was leaving after one season in which the Quakers went 12-11, 7-7 in the Ivy.
She came to Penn after 14 seasons at Illinois-Chicago. She was a member of the 1999 Penn State NCAA-championship team.
So add Penn to the list of Division I vacancies. Here are the ones filled since our last coaching-carousel report January 25:
— UAB hired Amy Pauly, who was associate head coach at Villanova;
— High Point got Creighton assistant coach Ryan Meek. Meek was at Creighton for two seasons after five as head coach of Hendrix College;
— Lehigh went with Alexa Keckler, who has been the coach at Division III Muhlenberg the past eight years;
— Louisiana-Monroe hired Russ Friedland to head both the indoors and beach programs. He spent the past two years as an assistant at East Carolina;
Openings include:
Cal
The Citadel
Green Bay
Hartford
Lamar
UMBC
Nicholls State
Penn
Siena
Matt McShane is still listed on the schoolâs website as Calâs head coach, but he is on a leave of absence that started before the end of last season.
Also, Coastal Carolina hired Steve Loeswick as its beach coach. The former USC player and LSU assistant coach was let go from North Florida after six seasons where he was the head coach for both indoors and beach. Coastal was 1-15 in beach last season.
UCLA, Hawai’i men win: UCLA of the MPSF rolled over visiting Princeton of the EIVAÂ 25-21, 25-17, 25-16 as Micah Ma’a had six aces and Dylan Missry had four as the Bruins improved to 9-1. Missry also had nine kills and hit .615.
Princeton, which dropped to 1-6, got five kills each from Greg Luck and Parker Dixon.
Hawai’i of the Big West routed visiting Lees-McRae of Conference Carolinas 25-11, 25-11, 25-18. Hawai’i (8-1) hit .418. Austin Matautia led the Rainbow Warriors with 10 kills and hit .563.
Lees McRae is 1-7 after hitting minus .016. Hawai’i plays host to another EIVA team on Friday, Sacred Heart.
