Heather Olmstead Named NCAA Women’s Volleyball National Coach Of The Year
Dec 13, 2018, 2:15 PM | Updated: 2:42 pm
BYU Head Coach Heather Olmstead celebrates during a timeout in the 3rd set. The #4 BYU Women's Volleyball team defeated #5 Texas 3-0 in the Regional Final of the NCAA Women's Volleyball Championships. (Jaren Wilkey, BYU)
(Jaren Wilkey, BYU)
PROVO, Utah – USMC/AVCA announced that BYU women’s volleyball coach Heather Olmstead has been named the National Coach of the Year.
Olmstead is in her fourth season at the helm for the Cougars and has led the program to their third Final Four appearance in school history. BYU won their first 27 games of the season and was ranked No. 1 in the country for 11-straight weeks during the regular season.
They lost their regular season finale before entering the NCAA Tournament as a four-seed. BYU swept Stony Brook and Utah in the first two rounds of the tournament. They beat Flordia 3-1 in the sweet sixteen and No. 5 Texas 3-0 in the elite eight to advance to the Final Four against Stanford on Thursday.
Olmstead was awarded the West Coast Conference and Pacific South Region Coach of the Year awards and had six players named All-Americans, All-Region and five players selected to the All-WCC this season, all are program records for a single season.
She has led BYU to WCC championships and at least two wins in the NCAA Tournament each of her four years as head coach. She has the highest winning percentage of any women’s volleyball coach in NCAA division 1 history and in NCAA history in any division with a 118-12 record (.908).
Olmstead is the second BYU women’s volleyball coach to earn AVCA Coach of the Year, joining her brother Shawn, who won the award in 2014. That was the last time the Cougars was in the Final Four, Heather was Shawn’s associate head coach that season.
Congratulations to @BYUwvolleyball head coach Heather Olmstead on being named the @AVCAVolleyball National Coach of the Year!#NCAAVB pic.twitter.com/4mB2WE6Gy1
— NCAA Volleyball (@NCAAVolleyball) December 13, 2018
No. 4 seeded BYU will face No. 1 Stanford on Thursday at 5 p.m. on ESPN in Minneapolis. The winner will advance to the National Championship Saturday and face the winner of the other semifinal game, No. 3 Illinois or No. 7 Nebraska.
