Two Skyline High (Colorado) seniors Alyssa Olson (Western Nebraska Community College) and Michaela Schmitt (Chadron State) have both recently committed to play volleyball in the Cornhusker state.

SCOTTSBLUFF - Four members of the national champion Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team will be continuing their volleyball careers this fall.

They are Kuulei Kabalis to Kansas State, Kathryn Stock to Nicholls State, Ariel Austin to University of Alaska Anchorage and Tania Torres to Berry University.

SCOTTSBLUFF - It will be a reunion of sorts for former WNCC volleyball coach Chris Green and current Cougar coach Giovana Melo on
Saturday, March 26 when the college will put on the second annual Spring Fever Volleyball tournament.

Melo, who played for Green when she was a setter for the Cougars in the early 2000s, will be coaching against her mentor in the tournament. Green will bring his University of Alaska Anchorage team to Scottsbluff for the spring tournament.

Green said it will be fun to be back at WNCC for a spell.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) is pleased to announce its Thirty Under 30 awards. This award was created in 2009 to honor up-and-coming coaching talent at all levels of the sport. To qualify for the award, nominees had to be younger than 30 years old in 2010. The list of winners will be featured in the upcoming April/May edition of Coaching Volleyball magazine.

"The most exciting thing about this award is how difficult it is getting to select just 30 winners from the hundreds of nominations,” said AVCA Executive Director Kathy DeBoer. “Congratulations to this outstanding class. The future of our sport is in good hands.”

Of the thirty recipients, 18 are head coaches and 12 are assistant coaches. Eight are NCAA Division I women’s coaches, four coach NAIA women’s squads, three are NCAA Division II women’s coaches, three are NCAA Division III women’s coaches, two are club coaches, two are from Two-Year Colleges, two coach high school girls programs, one is a high school boys coach and one is an NAIA men’s coach.

Western Nebraska Community College volleyball players *Kathryn Stock* and *Kuulei Kabalis* will be taking their talents to the next level after verbally committing to NCAA Division I schools.

Stock, who is from Thibodeaux, La., is going 15 minutes from home after agreeing to attend Nichols State University in Louisiana. Kabalis is staying in the Midwest as she committed to Kansas State University.

Both players said they fell in love with the Division one programs.

Click to view story on Western Nebraska Community College website

Western Nebraska Community College volleyball coach Giovana Melo is sporting a new look after donating 11 inches of her hair to the Locks of Love national program.

Click to view story on Omaha World-Herald

Give Cola Svec an average pass and the University of Nebraska at Kearney senior would work her magic, transforming it into an excellent set.

“That's what really separates her from the pack,” Loper coach Rick Squiers said.

Western Nebraska Community College volleyball coach Giovana Melo has announced that there will be an open tryout for any volleyball players that would like to play for the 2010 NJCAA national champion Cougars.

The try out will be held Saturday, Jan. 15, 2011, from 3-5 p.m. in Cougar Palace. Melo said the tryout is open to any high school graduating senior.

Melo said that during the season, she doesn’t get a chance to see a lot of high school volleyball matches because of the Cougars’ schedule. So, this is a way to see all the talent out there.

“I just want to give the local players an opportunity to get seen,” she said. “I know during season we are playing and many of them do not play club so we don’t get much time to watch them play and I think we have a lot of local talent. I just want to give them a chance to show their talent.”

The WNCC women finished last season with a 43-4 record and captured their second national title in four years. Melo, in her three seasons as head coach of the Cougars, has guided the Cougars to three straight Final Four appearances. Melo, who played for WNCC in 2001 and 2002, has a career coaching record of 144-12.

Melo’s players have gone on to play at four-year schools around the United States, including Fatima Balza at Penn State, Nayka Benitez at Creighton, Brooke Blomenkamp at Grand Canyon College, Whitney Roth at Texas A&M-Kingsville, Cami Weimer at Oklahoma Baptist, Paulina Piegza at St. Johns, and Kalei Kabalis at Washington State.

Click to view story on Western Nebraska Community College web site

Click to view story on WNCC website

The Western Nebraska Community College volleyball team now has a day they can call their own after Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman recognized the Cougar volleyball team for winning their second national title in four years at a Friday morning presentation at the Gering Civic Center.