What a season for San Diego. It put a punctuation point on what has been a tremendous career for coach Jen Petrie, who this season took her Toreros to new heights.
San Diego finished 31-2, losing only to the two national-championship finalists, Texas and Louisville. In between the Toreros won 28 matches in a row and won the West Conference before being seeded fifth in the NCAA Tournament.
They then beat Northern Colorado, Washington State, Kentucky and Stanford before losing to Texas in four in the program’s first NCAA national semifinals.
Petrie, the USD coach since 1999, was also the AVCA national coach of the year. Later Thursday we will announce the VolleyballMag.com national player of the year and our All-American teams. Note below our other national coaches of the year since 2016.
Petrie, whose career record is 478-165, not only did a masterful job this season, bringing in transfers and getting her team to improve all season, the coaching mom offered a perspective on her job that might not have been publicized had she not had such success.
We talk about that and more in this interview conducted Wednesday:
While Petrie was unanimous, plenty of others got votes. Our panel of voters, asked to nominate their top three, also gave nods to Wisconsin’s Kelly Sheffield, Jerritt Elliott of Texas, Penn State’s Katie Schumacher-Cawley, TCU’s Jason Williams, Oregon’s Matt Ulmer, Marquette’s Ryan Theis, Auburn’s Brent Crouch and Louisville’s Dani Busboom Kelly.
Since we took over Volleyball magazine and went digital with VolleyballMag.com in 2016, we’ve had some great choices as national coach of the year.
In 2016, our coach of the year was Creighton’s Kirsten Bernthal Booth.
Inky Ajanaku, Micaya White, Creighton’s Bernthal Booth top VolleyballMag.com All-America teams
In 2017, it was Wichita State’s Chris Lamb.
Wichita State’s Chris Lamb is the 2017 VolleyballMag.com Coach of the Year
In 2018, the winner was Nebraska’s John Cook.
Stanford’s Plummer, Nebraska’s Cook highlight VolleyballMag.com All-American teams
In 2019, the pick was Baylor’s Ryan McGuyre.
Stanford’s Plummer, Baylor’s McGuyre lead VolleyballMag.com All-American teams
In 2020 (spring 2021) it was Kentucky’s Craig Skinner.
Lilley, Skinner, Londot top VolleyballMag.com 2020/Spring 2021 All-American teams
And last year, it was Louisville’s Dani Busboom Kelly.
Eggleston, Busboom Kelly, Sis top VolleyballMag.com 2021 All-American teams
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Volleyballmag.com…