Volleyball

NCAA volleyball: Rubio retires, Michigan hires, Launstein leaves, men’s update

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Another longtime NCAA women’s coach has retired, Michigan hired, a key Nebraska player steps away, the men’s season rolls on, and we have AVCA updates.

ARIZONA’S RUBIO RETIRES: Dave Rubio, a man of many talents, announced his retirement on Tuesday after 31 years as the head coach at Arizona. Before that, he was the head coach for five seasons at Cal State Bakersfield. 

Rubio went 570-380 at Arizona, the 11th most wins among active NCAA Division I coaches. Read more in the Arizona news release here.

We are interviewing Rubio later Wednesday, but in the meantime, it’s well worth reading our story (click here) about him that we did during the early stages of the pandemic when we talked about him teaching ballroom dancing, surfing and renovating old cars.

Beth Launiere of Utah, starting her 34th season, is the longest-tenured coach in the Pac-12. Rubio had been in the league longer, since Utah joined the conference in 2010. Click here for a list of the longest-tenured coaches in NCAA Division I volleyball.

MICHIGAN HIRES VIRTUE: Erin Virtue, the offensive coordinator for the USA women’s national team, which includes winning the gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics, takes over in Ann Arbor. 

Virtue, a standout player at Illinois, was an assistant at Michigan from 2011-2015 and then spent three seasons as an assistant at Northwestern before heading to the USA gym. 

She takes over a team that finished 17-13 overall, 8-12 in the Big Ten. Mark Rosen, who took a leave of absence during the season, was let go after 24 seasons.

Read the Michigan news release here.

Nebraska’s Whitney Lauenstein hits over the Stanford block/Scott Bruhn, Nebraska Communications

LAUENSTEIN OUT: Sophomore right side Whitney Lauenstein, who was second on Nebraska’s team in kills in 2022 and second in blocks, is leaving volleyball. The 6-foot-2 product of Waverly, Nebraska, posted on Instagram ” … I have decided to step away from the volleyball team to focus on myself and be with my family and continue to heal due to the passing of my dad.”

Another right side, VolleyballMag.com honorable-mention All-American Merritt Beason of Florida, transferred to Nebraska last month. 

NCAA MEN: There are eight teams involving NCAA Division I-II teams on Wednesday, including Emmanuel at UC Irvine and Saint Francis at Hawai’i. For links to all matches that are being shown, go to our VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming Listings.

There were three matches Tuesday when UC San Diego swept Emmanuel, Harvard did the same to Merrimack and Tusculum beat Erskine in four. UCSD hit .387 and Josh Schellinger had 14 kills while hitting .579 to go with seven digs.

AVCA: The latest AVCA Men’s National Collegiate Coaches Poll has no changes for the first nine teams, which includes No. 1 Hawai’i. The Rainbow Warriors opened with two victories this past weekend. No one dropped out. See the entire top 15 here. 

The AVCA player of the week is Hawai’i junior Spyros Chakas, who averaged 5.13 kills per set in two victories over Ball State. We featured Chakas and his Greek teammate, Dimitrios Mouchlias last week.

NCAA volleyball: Rubio retires, Michigan hires, Launstein leaves, men’s update Volleyballmag.com.

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