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SALT LAKE CITY -- University of Utah volleyball head coach Beth Launiere has been named the Tachikara/AVCA Division I West Region Coach of the Year on the heels of guiding her team to an historic finish in 2006. The honor makes Launiere eligible for the Tachikara/AVCA National Coach of the Year award.
"These awards are a reflection the tremendous season we had and the hard work we put into it," said Launiere. "Individual awards are nice but they are secondary to the accomplishments we recorded as a team. We wouldn't have won any awards without all of our success."
Launiere's squad began the season ranked No. 24 in the CSTV/AVCA Division I Top 25 coaches poll, and rode a school record 25-match win streak to a No. 9 rating late in the season. The win streak included a 16-0 mark in the conference as the Utes only lost eight games during that stretch.
Entering the NCAA Tournament as the No. 11-ranked team in the coaches poll, Launiere guided the Utes to the second round for the seventh time.
Utah finishes the season with school records in wins (28), conference wins (16) and winning percentage ( 875).
Launiere wins her second Tachikara/AVCA Division I West Region Coach of the Year honor, the first coming in 2001.
Launiere took over a Utah program in 1990 that had won only one match in all of 1989. Now 17 years later, she took her ninth consecutive team to the NCAA Division I Tournament, won her fifth Mountain West Conference title, and has recorded eleven straight 20-win seasons (12 overall).
