Wyoming volleyball head coach Kaylee Prigge has already had a very successful season for a first year coach. Leading her team to a historic and record-breaking start to the season, the Cowgirls opened up the season 11-0, not losing once during their non-conference campaign.
If you ask her however, she would tell you she couldn’t have done it alone. She attributes a lot of her success to her team and trio of assistant coaches.
“All three of them [assistant coaches] having worn that hat and having sat in that chair, [of being a head coach] and being able to bounce stuff off of them and lean on them when I’m going through it for the time is huge,” Prigge had said, praising her assistant coaches.
Her assistant coaches all have previous head coaching experience, but for Prigge, it is her first time leading a program at any level. She began her coaching career as an assistant at her alma mater, the University of Tampa, which competes at the Division II level.
After spending time there, she was an assistant at Southern Illinois university and also spent two years as an assistant at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
She then came to Wyoming as an assistant in 2019, where she remained in the position for four years until she was named the head coach shortly after the conclusion of the 2022 season.
One of her biggest coaching inspirations was her head coach from University of Tampa, Chris Catanach, who has served as the school’s volleyball head coach for 39 years and has amassed an incredible .844 overall winning percentage in that time, as well as won four national championships at the D-II level.
“He’s a lifetime learner and doesn’t have an ego,” Prigge said in reference to her old coach. “I remember many times as a player walking in the gym and he’s the one sweeping the floor. I’ve taken away major lessons from [him] for sure.”
Coach Prigge knew she would have to use these lessons and translate them into her own coaching, especially since she knew she had little time to work with her team before their first match. She had a few opportunities to coach some of the players on campus in the spring, but for this young team, they didn’t get to practice all together until August 8th, just two weeks before the beginning of the season.
Prigge knew that her team had a lot of work ahead of them if they wanted to be prepared for their first game of the season.“It’s very accelerated, we’re not really necessarily going to change a bunch of things technically at that time,” Prigge said, “but culturally, who do we want to be?”
The Cowgirls and Prigge quickly found out who they were going to be, as match after match they seemingly found a way to win, opening the season with a school-record 11 straight wins.
While Prigge notes that was never quite the plan, she knew her team always had it in them to pull it off.
However, the beginning of conference play for the Cowgirls has been a bit of a struggle, as they lost their opening two games on the road. Prigge believes this is no reason to get down on the team, and believes it can be a great learning experience for her young squad.
“I think getting the results we had last weekend was good for us in a lot of ways,” Prigge explained. “Against Utah State, we never really could get going. I don’t think we quite responded quickly enough against Boise. We play Thursdays and Saturdays most often. That’s a quick turnaround, and we’ve got to be able to put that stuff behind us to be able to perform the way we want to.”
While nobody is happy with a loss, Prigge still thinks that taking Utah State, the team picked to win the Mountain West this year, to five sets on the road is a huge deal.
With the Cowgirls next four conference games all at home, Prigge hopes to have a raucous home environment to help propel them to victory.
She knows the fans play a huge factor, and she wants that advantage of a rowdy crowd every home game.
“Since I’ve been here this fall, we’ve had the best attendance in the UniWyo in a long time. I know our team feels the love and support of our fans and the environment has been so, so great,” Prigge said, “and I know our opponents feel the exact opposite. I know they feel uncomfortable in there and we love that.”
While Prigge noted she is not really superstitious, she still knows how lucky she is to be in the position she is and knows that her team did not start out 11-0 just by chance.
Her team puts in the work day in and day out to put the best product of themselves out on the court. Coach Prigge knows this young team has the potential to be something great, and wants all the state to be a part of it as well.
