She has only been at Duke for two seasons, but Jolene Nagel is already making a name for herself with the Blue Devils.
On Thursday, Nagel was named the East District coach of the year by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. Sophomore Jill Sonne and freshman Krista Dill were also named to the All-Region first team as well.
The honor is nothing new to Nagel, who won similar regional coach of the year honors in 1998 at Georgetown. In her 13-year career, Nagel is 238-163 overall, having brought programs at Cornell and Georgetown to high levels of NCAA competition. Nagel gave the credit for this honor to her team.
"The team made everything happen," Nagel said. "They are the ones who put in all the hard work and made the commitment to themselves and this program to be at a level to be able to get to this point, as far as improvement.
"I believe they're going to continue to do that, which is really exciting. But I'm so excited we were able to have success this year and reward all their hard work."
After taking Duke to a 13-14 mark last season, Nagel saw her team improve to 21-13 overall this season. Despite some tough losses during the ACC regular season, the Blue Devils took off at the end, carrying their momentum into the postseason. After upsetting top-seeded Georgia Tech in the ACC tournament, Duke fell to North Carolina in the final match.
Duke's showing earned it an invitation to the NCAA tournament-the first invite since 1994-where the team lost to Arizona State 3-1 in the first round.
"I think the NCAA berth definitely helped highlight myself as well as Krista and Jill," Nagel said.
Sonne was named to the All-ACC second team this season after ending the year with 364 kills. Dill was named to the All-Rookie team after being named ACC rookie of the week four times during the regular season. The freshman led the team with 146 blocks and added 363 kills as well.
Nagel also said the postseason honors will benefit the Blue Devils' volleyball program in terms of prestige and recruiting.
"The coach thing is really for the program," Nagel said. "It's not me, it's our staff that we have here, our administration that we have here at Duke. It's the team and all the long hours and commitment to allow us to have had the success we have had this season. It was really a culmination of a lot of people."
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