Head coach Jeremiah Larsen and the women of the Weber State volleyball team are celebrating a new accomplishment to finish off their spring season after Larsen was dubbed Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year.
Larsen is the third coach in Weber State program history to earn this award.
“This award is an acknowledgment of what my players have been able to accomplish,” Larsen said. “It’s been a long six years, but it’s been a perfect storm.”
Larsen entered his sixth season with Weber State for the 2021 season. Before the Wildcats’ 2020 fall season was postponed, Larsen led the team to one of the program’s best seasons in school history in 2019. The Wildcats finished their 2019 season 26–9 overall, 10–3 at home and 9–5 away.
At the end of their 2019 season, no one expected there would be more than 400 days before the Wildcats would play in their next match.
The long-awaited 2021 season arrived in January, and the ‘Cats were able to go 15–1 in conference play, 8–0 at home and 7–1 away. Northern Arizona handed Weber State their first loss of the season on March 7, when the Lumberjacks took the match in four sets, 3–1. The Wildcats closed out regular season play and were also named with the first place bid in the championship tournament.
“We created a culture here that we can get better, where we can better ourselves as players and coaches,” Larsen said. “We knew that would build us up as a championship team.”
Furthering their success past the conference title, Weber State clawed their way through Eastern Washington, Northern Arizona and Northern Colorado to add the Big Sky Tournament to their list of accolades.
The NCAA announced the 48-team bracket on April 4 to lay out the tournament. The Wildcats were selected to take on the Bowling Green State University Falcons in round one of the NCAA tournament on April 14 in Omaha, Nebraska.
