Dec. 10, 2009

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Florida State second-year head coach Chris Poole was named the American Volleyball Coaches Association East Region Coach of the Year, announced by the AVCA. The honor is Poole's first East-Region nod, but second overall, as he earned the District 4 Coach of the Year while the head coach at Arkansas.

In just his second season in guiding the Seminole program, Poole--the 2009 ACC Coach of the Year--led his squad to the team's first Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season championship with a 19-1 league record. Florida State, which is ranked 12th in the most recent AVCA Top-25 poll, finished the regular season with a 28-2 overall record.

Poole became the 16th active Division I coach to earn 600 victories in the Seminoles' 3-0 sweep of Alabama A&M (Dec. 5) in the first round of the 2009 NCAA Volleyball Championship in Tallahassee, Fla. Florida State then defeated Jacksonville State (Dec. 6) to advance to the Round of 16 for the first time in program history.

Other regional winners include Christy Johnson of Iowa State (Central), Rick Nold of Jacksonville State (Midwest), Debbie Brown of Notre Dame (Northeast), Rob Browning of Saint Mary's (Pacific), Fran Flory of Louisiana State (South), Dave Shoji of Hawaii (West), and Russ Rose of Penn State (Mideast), whose squad is a two-time defending NCAA champion and is riding a 98-match winning streak

Florida State--the tournament's third overall seed--was one of a league-record five teams to earn berths in the 2009 NCAA Volleyball Championship, with Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, and Miami also making appearances. In addition to becoming the first team since Georgia Tech in 2004 to advance past the second round, the Seminoles are just the third ACC team to accomplish the feat since 1980, when the league first sponsored volleyball.

The Seminoles will have the opportunity to become the second ACC team in league history to advance to the regional final when its plays Kentucky (29-4), currently ranked 13th by the AVCA, on Friday, December 11 at 6 p.m. in Minneapolis, Minn. The winner will play the winner between No. 11 Minnesota, the regional host, and No. 25 Colorado State on Saturday, December 12 at 6:30 p.m. The match will be televised by ESPNU.

More ACC volleyball information can be found at http://www.theacc.com/sports/w-volley/acc-w-volley-body.html.