OGDEN, Utah (November 21, 2018) – After guiding the Northern Arizona volleyball team to their second Big Sky regular season championship in four seasons, head coach
Ken Murphy was voted by his peers as the Big Sky's Coach of the Year in an announcement by the league office on Wednesday. Murphy is the second-ever Lumberjack coach to earn Coach of the Year honors following Kelley Sliva in 1999.
Although Murphy has coached the 'Jacks to a conference-high 128 overall wins and 75 Big Sky victories since he took over the program in 2013, the Coach of the Year award is his first in the Big Sky. Murphy was named Conference USA Coach of the Year in 2012 – his final season at UTEP before making the move to Flagstaff.
In a vote by the conference's head coaches, Murphy was recognized for coaching the Lumberjacks to a 23-8 overall record this season, including a signature win over No. 8 Florida on Sept. 7. NAU finished the season as Big Sky co-regular season champions, with Idaho, after posting a 15-3 conference record. The Lumberjacks own the nation's 13th longest win streak of 10 victories heading into the start of conference tournament on Thursday.
Murphy coached four players – redshirt senior
Kaylie Jorgenson, junior
Abby Akin, sophomore
Heaven Harris and freshman
Ryann Davis – to all-conference honors this season. Jorgenson (Co-Most Valuable Player) and Davis (Outstanding Freshman) were individual award winners as well.
The Lumberjacks garnered a league-high nine Player of the Week awards this season and two players – senior
Jordan Anderson and junior
Sydney Lema – joined the elite 1,000 dig club.
NAU has collected 20 or more wins in four of Murphy's six seasons at the helm. The program had only achieved three such seasons prior to Murphy's arrival.
Murphy owns a record of 128-55 entering Thursday's Big Sky first round tournament matchup with Montana State. His 128 victories is second in program history behind Sliva's 143 and he also ranks fifth in conference history, and leads all active coaches, in win percentage (.699).
