GALION — The Galion High School volleyball program is under new leadership.
Kathleen Scott was approved to serve as head coach for the 2021 season during the March 16 Galion City Schools Board of Education meeting.
“We are very excited to welcome Kathleen to our Tiger family,” Athletic Director Kyle Baughn said. “She played college volleyball and served as captain. She has coached multiple club volleyball teams.”
Baughn said Scott replaces Kristy Hardy as head coach.
Scott played a total of 10 seasons of volleyball from junior high through college. An alumnus of Lancaster High School, Scott went on to play for four years at Wilmington College, an NCAA Division III institution located in Wilmington, Ohio. She ranks fifth among the Quakers’ career assists leaders with 397. She served as team captain for Wilmington during her senior season in 2009.
“My dad was a coach at Lancaster, so I kind of grew up around it and watched my dad do it and knew that that was the route I wanted to follow, too,” Scott said.
Scott’s coaching resume spans 15 years, including experience at the junior high, high school, and club levels. She was an assistant coach from 2018 to 2020 at Cardington-Lincoln High School in Morrow County prior to accepting the appointment as head coach at Galion.
In 2017, she served as the head varsity volleyball coach at Sugarcreek Garaway High School. Prior to that, she was the junior varsity and varsity assistant coach at Strasburg High School from 2014 to 2016. She was the seventh and eighth grade coach at Strasburg in 2013.
In 2011, Scott coached the eighth grade volleyball squad at General Sherman Junior High School. She coached the Wilmington High School junior varsity team in 2010.
Scott is currently a coach for the Mid Ohio Volleyball Academy. She coached for the Mintonette Kokosing Club in 2019 and 2020. She was a coach for the Klars Volleyball Club from 2014 through 2017. In 2013, she coached for the Southeast Extreme Volleyball Club.
Scott helped operate the Lancaster High School summer camp program for three years and helped supervise tryouts for the high school team for four seasons.
In Galion, Scott takes the reins of a program that has enjoyed a fantastic run of success since joining the Mid Ohio Athletic Conference. The Lady Tigers program is undefeated (24-0) in the league over the past two seasons and has recorded a 79-13 conference record since joining the MOAC in 2014. Galion has won five MOAC titles, including the last four in a row.
“I’m excited to start my new journey with Galion,” Scott said. “It kind of reminds me of my high school. We were big on tradition. We knew that as seniors, we always had the younger ones looking up to us and we knew that we had to be role models for the players who were coming up. I’m just excited to come in and keep the tradition going and get some younger girls up into the program. ”
Scott said she was already familiar with some of the players on the team from club volleyball and is impressed with them.
“All around, the girls are hard-working,” Scott said. “They always have a smile on their faces. They’re always having fun while also pushing themselves. They don’t need someone to push them, they push themselves naturally. … They have an attitude of being open to change. I think a lot of the girls really love the sport. They don’t play it just to play something. They genuinely love the sport.”
Scott shared some of what she discussed with the Lady Tigers when she met with the team last Friday.
“I introduced myself to them, told them a little bit about my background, just so I wouldn’t be a stranger to some of them when they come into open gym starting in April,” Scott said. “I really wanted them to see who I was and show them that I have passion for the sport and that even though I am new, we’re going to hit the ground running and we’re going to get excited and put work in during the summer like they usually do to help keep that tradition alive.”
