HAMPTON, Va. – The Hampton University Department of Athletics has announced that Janay Yancey, who spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach with the volleyball program, has been promoted to head coach.
Yancey will become the program’s eighth head coach.
In Yancey’s two seasons as an assistant coach, the Lady Pirates won back-to-back MEAC Tournament crowns and made two straight appearances in the NCAA Tournament. Hampton won a combined 40 matches in those two seasons, including a program Div. I-record 21 this past season.
Hampton went a combined 21-3 in MEAC play in those two seasons.
Much of Yancey’s on-court coaching focused on the middle blockers, and Hampton ranked fourth in the MEAC in blocks last season with an average of 1.85 per set. Two Lady Pirates ranked in the top 10 in the conference in blocks: middle blockers Marija Kocevska (ninth) and Kennedy Kenney (10th).
In fact, seven players had at least 25 total blocks last season. Kocevska led the way with 91, while rightside Vendula Strakova – the two-time reigning MEAC Player of the Year and AVCA All-America Honorable Mention – had 81 total blocks.
Kenney was third on the team with 59 total blocks last season.
Kitija Megne, who was First Team All-MEAC as a setter, was fourth on the team with 43 total blocks.
Yancey came to Hampton in 2013, and she helped guide the Lady Pirates to their first-ever MEAC Tournament championship. Hampton won 19 matches that season and went 10-2 in conference play to win its first-ever MEAC Northern Division regular-season title.
In winning the MEAC that season, the Lady Pirates made their first-ever NCAA Div. I Tournament appearance, taking on No. 7 seed Stanford in the first round.
Yancey began her coaching career as a student assistant at Middle Tennessee State in 2010, when MTSU won the Sun Belt Conference championship with a 29-6 record and made its fifth NCAA appearance. In 2011, Yancey joined South Alabama as a graduate assistant.
Her collegiate playing career began at North Carolina State in 2006, and Yancey lettered there for two seasons as a middle blocker; as a sophomore, Yancey averaged 2.07 kills and 0.62 blocks per set. She transferred to Middle Tennessee State in 2008, and she was named All-Sun Belt Tournament as a senior in 2009.
In 2008, Yancey was named to the Sun Belt’s Commissioner’s List for academic excellence.
MTSU won the Sun Belt in 2009, and in both of Yancey’s seasons at MTSU, the team advanced to the NCAA Tournament. She ranks fifth in MTSU program history in career blocks per set, having averaged 1.09 blocks per set in her two years with the program.
Yancey hit .368 in 2008, recording MTSU’s seventh-best single-season hitting percentage, and her .364 hitting percentage as a senior in 2009 is the ninth-highest mark in a single season in MTSU history.
Yancey graduated from MTSU in 2009 with a B.S. in Exercise Science, before earning an M.S. in Exercise Science from South Alabama in 2011. In 2011, she was a recipient of the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Minority Coaches Scholarship.
Yancey, a native of Columbia, Tenn., is a member of the AVCA and a 2014 graduate of the NCAA Women Coaches Academy.
For more information, visit www.hamptonpirates.com