Matt Houk (right) has been named head women’s volleyball coach at St. Norbert, athletics director Tim Bald announced on April 11.

Houk is currently the club director and coach for the Wisconsin Volleyball Academy in Appleton. Prior to working with the Wisconsin Volleyball Academy, Houk was an assistant coach at UW-Green Bay and UW-Milwaukee, both NCAA Division I programs. Houk also owns JAM Sports in Green Bay, which helps coordinate and staff youth volleyball camps in the area.

A 2002 graduate of UW-Milwaukee, Houk played baseball collegiately at Milwaukee and UW-Oshkosh. Houk was the starting shortstop on Milwaukee’s NCAA Tournament qualifier and hit .342 in his two years in a Panther uniform.

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After 11 seasons and 365 combined victories as Ripon head coach in volleyball and softball, Kelly Witte (right) has decided to resign, effective at the end of the 2008 softball season. Witte has accepted a full-time faculty position at UW-Whitewater as the coordinator of coaching minor in the department of health, physical education, recreation and coaching.

In her time at Ripon, Witte has been named Midwest Conference Coach of the Year four times, three for softball, and once for volleyball. She has led the Red Hawks to two MWC North Division titles in softball and one MWC North Division title in volleyball.

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Lake Forest Athletic Director Jackie Slaats announced on January 2 that Jennifer Saylor (right) will be the school’s next head volleyball coach.

Since July of 2002 Saylor has served as the head coach at fellow MWC member Illinois College. She led the Lady Blues’ to a 105-100 overall record and 31-23 mark in league play during her tenure.

In addition to coaching the volleyball team, Saylor was Illinois College’s head softball coach and Director of the Bellatti Fitness Center on campus. The softball team claimed the 2005 MWC South Division title and she was named the division’s Coach of the Year three times. Saylor graduated from Heidelberg College in 2000 and then earned a master’s degree in sports science from the United States Sports Academy in 2001.

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Conference champion Carroll and regular-season league runner-up St. Norbert, who each dropped one conference match during the 2007 season, were rewarded with a conference-best five selections apiece on the 2007 Midwest Conference Volleyball All-Conference Team. League tourney qualifiers Lake Forest, Ripon and Monmouth, the latter of whom reached the MWC tournament final, followed with three selections each. Both of Beloit’s All-MWC picks were first teamers, while Grinnell, Illinois College and Lawrence rounded out the 24 total All-Conference selections with one student-athlete from each institution.

St. Norbert produced the conference Player of the Year in junior middle hitter Joanna Mamayek (right), while Carroll head coach Annie Glieber (left) was named the league’s Coach of the Year for the second consecutive season.

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The Carroll volleyball teams season came to end Thursday evening, as the Lady Pioneers dropped a first round NCAA Division III Tournament match in on the road at Carthage, the nation’s sixth ranked team.

Ashli Ligocki, Barb Peters and Alysha Schertz each recorded five kills apiece in the three-game match, while Nikole Bohn added 20 assists.

Annie Glieber’s squad, which won the school’s first MWC championship and first league tournament title in 2007, closed the year with a 20-14 overall record.

Lake Forest College Head Volleyball Coach Beth Pier (right) announced on Wednesday (November 7) that she is resigning after 14 years at the helm of the program. After a total of 20 years in the profession, Pier has chosen to pursue opportunities outside of coaching. A national search will begin immediately to fill the open position.

Pier posted an overall record of 252-157 and a Midwest Conference mark of 66-28 during her tenure. Her teams claimed conference championships in 1997, 1999-2001, and 2003 and advanced to the NCAA Division III Tournament following each of their last four league titles. Pier was named MWC Coach of the Year after each of her team’s championship seasons.

After graduating from St. Norbert College in 1987 and serving as an assistant coach at St. Norbert and Lawrence University a combined six years, Pier was named head volleyball coach at Lake Forest in 1994. She also served as an assistant coach for the women’s basketball team through the 1999-2000 season.

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Clarissa Edge, a Biology and Chemistry major with a 4.0 grade point average at Illinois College, was selected to the second team of the CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District V Volleyball Team.

Edge recorded 63 kills, 15 assists, 52 service aces and 305 digs as a libero for the Lady Blues during her junior season.

The Carroll women’s volleyball team will face Carthage, the No. 6 team in the country according to the AVCA, in the first round of the 2007 NCAA Division III Volleyball Tournament. The match is slated for 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 8 and will take place on the Lady Reds’ home court in Kenosha, Wis. Carthage was selected to host the eight-team regional, with the winner of the Carroll at Carthage match set to face the winner of Calvin vs. UW-La Crosse.

Carroll won the 2007 Midwest Conference Championship after posting an 8-1 mark in league play and received the MWC’s automatic berth to the NCAA tourney after winning the conference tournament. Both titles were firsts for the Lady Pioneers, who are 20-13 overall this year, since joining the MWC in 1992.

Carthage enters the NCAA Tournament as an automatic qualifier as well, posting a 31-4 overall record and a 7-0 mark in the CCIW, in addition to winning the CCIW tournament. Carthage defeated Lake Forest in three games in its lone match against an MWC school this season. Carroll posted a 2-3 mark against CCIW schools in 2007.

A trio of seniors led the way for the Carroll volleyball team on Saturday, as the Lady Pioneers won the 2007 Midwest Conference Volleyball Tournament. Annie Glieber's (right) top-seeded Lady Pioneers four-game victory over No.3 Monmouth in the tourney final gives Carroll the conference’s automatic berth to the 2007 NCAA Tournament and will mark the school’s first NCAA appearance since joining the MWC in 1992.

After dropping the first game to Monmouth 30-20, Carroll settled in by winning games two and three by identical 30-28 tallies. The Lady Pioneers, who won the 2007 MWC Championship with an 8-1 mark in MWC play, closed the tournament in convincing fashion, winning 30-19. Carroll seniors Ashli Ligocki (13), Cara Sronce (12) and Barb Peters (10) all registered double-digit kills, while Samantha Robinson paced Monmouth with 13 kills.

The NCAA will reveal the qualifying teams for the 2007 tourney on Sunday (November 4), while the tournament’s regional brackets will be released on Monday (November 5). The Midwest Conference website and www.ncaasports.com will have brackets available as soon as they are released.

Monmouth head volleyball coach Kari Shimmin (right) and her husband, assistant coach Hank, were not in Waukesha, Wisconsin on Friday evening as the third-seeded Fighting Scots prepared for action in the 2007 Midwest Conference Volleyball Tournament. The Shimmin’s remained in Illinois, where the head coach had given birth to a baby daughter earlier that morning.

Meanwhile, her squad delivered an upset on their way to the tourney finals behind assistant coach Lynn Ewing and will face top-seeded Carroll for the tourney title and an automatic berth to the 2007 NCAA Tournament on Saturday at 1 p.m. The match will be aired live on the internet via an MWCTV webcast.

Monmouth recorded a three-game quarterfinal victory over Lake Forest, before rallying to outlast No. 2 seed St. Norbert in a five-game semifinal showdown.

On the other side of the bracket, Ripon won a quarterfinal decision over Beloit in three games, before Carroll avenged a regular-season loss with a three-game semifinal triumph over the Red Hawks.

Carroll will host the 2007 Volleyball Tournament on Friday and Saturday, November 2-3. The quarterfinals and semifinals will not be carried on MWCTV due to multiple matches unfolding at the same time, but Saturday’s tournament championship will be carried live on MWCTV at 1 p.m.

Carroll will host the 2007 Midwest Conference Volleyball Tournament on Friday and Saturday, November 2-3 after winning its first volleyball title in school history this season. Annie Glieber’s (right) Lady Pioneers are now in search of a another first, an NCAA Tournament appearance, as the conference’s automatic qualifier for the NCAA tourney is awarded to the winner of the six-team league tournament.

The tourney field is the same as a year ago, with the exception of Ripon replacing Illinois College. The host Lady Pioneers and second-seeded Green Knights of St. Norbert both receive first-round byes, leaving No. 3 Monmouth vs. No. 6 Lake Forest and No. 4 Beloit vs. No. 5 Ripon to meet in the quarterfinals. The quarterfinal matches will begin at 4 p.m. on Friday, with the semifinal matches scheduled to follow at 7 p.m. Saturday’s tournament final is slated for a 1 p.m. start and can be viewed live on the internet via an MWCTV webcast.

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Carroll clinched the 2007 Midwest Conference Volleyball Championship on Thursday (October 25) with a three-game road victory over Lawrence. The title is the Lady Pioneers first-ever in volleyball since joining the MWC in 1992 and highlights an unprecedented turnaround by head coach Annie Glieber (right).

The Lady Pioneers went 0-9 in the MWC and managed just two victories overall in Glieber’s first season at Carroll in 2005, before qualifying for the MWC tournament last year as a No. 2 seed and appearing in the tourney finals. The Lady Pioneers are the first team in conference history to win a league title two years after finishing in last place.

Carroll will serve as the top seed and host for the MWC’s six-team conference tournament on November 2 and 3. The winner of the MWC tourney receives the conference’s automatic berth to the 2007 NCAA Tournament.

Beloit ’s Katie McCool, a 6-4 senior middle hitter, became the school’s career leader in kills during a loss at Carroll on October 10. McCool’s six kills during the match gave her 1,396 in her career, topping the mark set by Katelynn Rynders last season. She also has 500-plus total blocks, second on the career list, after getting three in the match.

Lake Forest senior Nicole Baich (right) set a career record during season-opening action at the Kalamazoo College Invitational on August 31 and September 1. Baich tallied 20 blocks in four contests, bringing her career total to 394 blocks, to surpass Angela Lagerman’s career mark of 393 blocks. The 6-0 middle blocker led the Forsters in kills in all four matches, as the team picked up a pair of wins. Baich moved into fourth in school history in kills with 1,094 and is 281 shy of the school record.

A year ago, four Midwest Conference volleyball teams received first-place votes in the MWC Preseason Coaches Poll, including Beloit, who rose from a predicted fourth-place finish to capture the school’s first MWC title since 1995 and second overall. Another wide open race appears to be on the horizon based on the results of the 2007 edition of the poll, as five different teams were deemed championship-caliber, including a tie for the league’s top spot between Carroll and St. Norbert. Annie Glieber’s (right) Lady Pioneers and Lori Sadewater’s (left) Green Knights tied in total votes, despite Carroll receiving four first-place nods to St. Norbert’s three. The next four slots in the poll were decided by eight total votes, as Lake Forest was slated to finish third, followed by Monmouth in fourth and Beloit in fifth. The Foresters, Fighting Scots and Buccaneers each received one first-place vote apiece. Beloit edged Illinois College, who finished sixth, by one vote, while Ripon followed in seventh. Lawrence, Grinnell and Knox rounded out the final three places in the poll, respectively.

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Dawn Kelly (right), a former head coach at the University of Rochester and an alum of the University of Wisconsin volleyball program, has been named the Head Volleyball Coach at Beloit.

Kelly comes to Beloit from St. John's School in Houston, Texas, where she has been the Head Volleyball Coach and Assistant Track & Field and Soccer Coach since 2003.  During her tenure at St. John's, she transformed the volleyball squad from a team that just got in to post-season play to the top-seeded team this past season, posting the best record in the history of the program at the school

Prior to St. John's, Kelly was the Head Volleyball Coach for four seasons at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, leading the team into the NCAA Tournament in her final season. She was also a Volleyball and Athletic Development Intern at Princeton University for one season, assisting both the women's and men's NCAA Tournament teams. 

A 1997 graduate of Wisconsin, she earned her Bachelors degree in Arts and English.  A walk-on for the Badger Volleyball team, she earned a full athletic scholarship and was a three-time Academic All-Big Ten selection.  She has started work on a Masters degree in Human Development.

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Knox Athletic Director Chad Eisele announced that current Knox Assistant Athletic Director Kim Schrader (right) will step into the role as the new Prairie Fire Volleyball Coach in 2007.

As a student at Marquette University, Schrader was a three-year letterwinner on the volleyball team. She served as head volleyball coach and assistant softball coach at Quincy University for three years before joining the Knox College admissions department in the summer of 1997. She moved to the Knox athletic department in the summer of 2000.

Schrader, who served as a Women’s Basketball Assistant Coach last season, replaces Kathy Wagoner, who is retiring from coaching at the end of the academic year.

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