University of Sioux Falls Athletics

Joel McCartney took over the USF Volleyball program in July of 2011 and is entering his ninth season as the program's head coach. Under McCartney’s leadership, the Cougar program has steadily climbed the competitive ladder, becoming a Top-50 power in arguably the strongest (NSIC) conference in the nation.

McCartney inherited the Cougar program in its final year of the transition (2011-12), and since that time, he has led the team’s improvement from a ranking of 242 to a program record 29 in the PABLO Ratings Index.

The Cougars have made four postseason appearances in the previous seven years, earning berths into the NSIC Tournament in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2018.  Under McCartney’s leadership in their NCAA Division II tenure, the Cougars have posted a 134-99 overall record in eight years as members of the NSIC.

Notwithstanding the Cougar’s success on the court, the program has also excelled to great heights academically.  The USF Volleyball program has been named AVCA All-Academic Team in each of the eight seasons McCartney has coached. The team has never produced a GPA lower than 3.44, and they set a new program benchmark with a 3.76 GPA in the 2015-16 academic year.

In January of 2016, McCartney was inducted into the Winthrop University Athletics Hall of Fame, where he was the head coach from 2001-2006, earning five consecutive Big South Conference Championships and five straight NCAA Division I Tournament berths. He left Winthrop as the all-time wins leader by a coach in the program’s history, as a two-time Big South Conference Coach of the Year. His programs finished a perfect 17-0 in conference play for the 2004, 2005 and 2006 seasons.

In 2019, USF finished 17-11 overall record and a 9-11 mark in league play. The Cougars opened 11-0 and earned a national ranking in the AVCA National Poll for the first time. USF opened at 24th and moved up to 19th in the AVCA poll. Seniors KaSandra Springer and Abby Feyereisen were named second team All-NSIC. In addition, the Cougars had six Academic All-NSIC honorees with both Feyereisen and Springer earning their third straight honor. Three USF student-athletes were named to the NSIC All-Academic Team of Excellence.

The 2018 team finished with a program DII best 20-10 record after playing the third most difficult schedule in NCAA DII. USF, which was led by its first-ever DII AVCA All-American Bria Bartnecht, advanced to the NSIC Semifinals for the first time. USF, which had a program-best 14 league wins, were ranked as high as No. 6 in the regional rankings, which was also a program-first. In a  first round NSIC Tourney win over defending national champion Concordia-St. Paul, the Cougars set a program DII mark with their 20^th win and recorded their first ever NSIC Tournament victory. USF defeated CSP for the second time in two weeks. In fact, after a 3-0 sweep over the Golden Bears on Oct. 27, the Cougars took three of the four sets. In the NSIC Tournament semifinals in Duluth, Minn., the Cougars lost to UMD, 3-0. The 2018 USF squad was led by a group of five seniors, which included career kills leader Makenna Rockeman and All-NSIC first-team selections Bria Barfnecht and Lexi Scott as well as Megan Hamstad and Anna Peterson. Rockeman, Barfnecht and Scott established a program first as they all finished with at least 1,000 career kills. Rockeman had a school record 1,285 while Barfnecht had 1,068 and Scott finished with 1,001. Also for USF, sophomore Averey Yaksich was named second team All-NSIC as the Cougars had three players named All-NSIC for the first time in program history. Barfnecht, who was named to a pair of all-tourney teams early in the year, was named to the All-NSIC Tournament Team after hitting .500 in two matches in the tournament.

In 2017, the Cougars received votes in the AVCA DII Top-25 poll for a program record seven straight weeks. For a second straight season, the USF program had success defeating nationally-ranked teams, taking down No. 9 Augustana and No. 15 Winona State.  The team was led by two-time All-NSIC performers, Makenna Rockeman and Lexi Scott. Rockeman, an outside hitter, finished the year with a team best 308 kills and Scott, a middle blocker, led the program with a .303 attacking efficiency.

The 2016 season produced a record breaking year by knocking off three nationally ranked opponents, including No. 1-ranked Minnesota Duluth on the road. The Cougars finished the season with a program best 19 wins overall and 13-7 NSIC record. USF completed the season with a rating of 29th overall in the NCAA for DII programs.

The USF program led the NSIC in blocking with an outstanding 2.36 blocks per set average.  Leading the way was Senior, Jordan Calef who set a program record with 1.19 blocks per set.  Calef also finished the season with a record 116 block assists, adding to her career best 437.

Two Cougars, Makenna Rockeman and Lexi Scott, were named second team All-NSIC honorees.  Rockeman led the Cougars with 402 kills and finished 3rd in the NSIC with 3.83 kills per set. Scott led the USF program with a .363 attacking efficiency and a personal best 303 kills on the year.

A young Cougars team took the floor in the 2015 season, with five freshmen working through the lineup. McCartney was ultimately setting the stage for a nationally competitive program and although the Cougars finished the campaign with just 13 wins, it was clear the program was poised for the future.

The Cougars finished the 2014 season with a 17-14 record and made their second consecutive NSIC Tournament, after an 11-9 mark in league play. The Cougars' five-set win over cross-town rival Augustana earned the program a qualifying spot in the post season event.

Outside hitter Emily Johnson led the program with 398 kills to become the first Cougar to eclipse the 1,000 kill threshold in USF's NCAA Division II era.  Johnson finished her career with 1,094 kills overall and also became Cougar Volleyball program’s first NSIC Scholar Athlete.

McCartney guided the Cougars to a 19-12 overall record and 10-10 NSIC record in 2013, a five-win improvement from the previous season. USF also doubled its conference win total to finish seventh in the NSIC standings and earn the program’s first-ever bid to the NSIC postseason tournament.  The Cougars notched a signature win as they stunned the sixth-ranked Southwest Minnesota State for USF’s first-ever win over a NCAA DII ranked opponent.

Outside hitter Emily Johnson and middle blocker Samantha Lovell both garnered All-NSIC honors in 2013, becoming the first Cougars to receive postseason awards. Johnson led the team in kills with 391, while Lovell ranked third in the NSIC with 1.12 blocks per set and paced the Cougars’ offense for the third year in a row with a .309 attack clip.
 
On August 31, 2012 in their first year as an NCAA DII program, the Cougars made history when they won the inaugural match of the season against Mayville State University.  On September 22, the Cougars made history again when they won their first NSIC match sweeping Saint Cloud State University in three sets.  The team would go on to win 14 matches overall in the 2012 season.

In McCartney's first year as head coach of the USF Cougars program, the team won 15 matches and closed out the 2011 campaign by winning seven of their last 10. The Cougars finished third in the NCAA Division II Transitional Tournament and placed two on the All-Tournament team in freshmen Emily Johnson and Samantha Lovell.
 
During the 2013-14 season, McCartney was named to the Big South Conference’s All-Decade (2000-09) Volleyball Team, recognizing his accomplishments during his tenure at Winthrop. He joins four of his former student-athletes in the university’s Athletic Hall of Fame. His teams were dominant through the decade winning five conference titles and achieving a 17-1 Big South Conference Tournament record. 

McCartney came to USF in July 2011 after a four-year rebuilding project as the head coach of the University of Georgia volleyball program. In McCartney's tenure, the Bulldogs compiled 66 overall wins including 32 in the SEC. 

In his first season at Georgia in 2007, McCartney led the Bulldogs to the biggest turnaround in program history, as that year's squad posted a 17-13 record following just a five-win campaign in 2006. The Bulldogs also posted eight conference victories; the most league wins for the program since 2004. Georgia's 17 total wins and eight SEC wins surpassed the combined total number of overall and conference wins from both the 2005 and 2006 seasons.
 
In 2008 McCartney’s Bulldogs upset an unbeaten and nationally ranked No. 8 University of Florida team for the first time since 1990.  This landmark was McCartney’s first win over a nationally ranked NCAA Division I opponent.  The 2008 Bulldogs ended the season with 10 SEC wins under McCartney’s leadership as he achieved his 300^th collegiate-career coaching victory that season.

The 2009 Bulldogs finished with 17 wins and a fifth-place finish in the conference, UGA's highest finish in the SEC since 2004.  In 2010, McCartney’s last with the Georgia program, the new athletic administration made a change in leadership and decided to part ways with the architect of the Bulldog volleyball program resurgence.  McCartney’s recruits would go on to earn their way into the NCAA Tournament in 2013 for the first time since the 2004 season.

Prior to his tenure at Georgia, McCartney coached Winthrop University to a 167-49 record in six seasons, including a 34-3 final campaign in 2006. McCartney's Eagles captured five consecutive Big South Conference titles and made five straight appearances in the NCAA Division I Tournament.  At the helm of Winthrop program, McCartney coached 28 Big South Conference honorees with the following superlative achievements:
McCartney as two-time Big South Coach-of-the-Year (2004 and 2006)
Two Big South Scholars-Athletes-of-the-Year
Five Big South Players-of-the-Year
Four Big South Tournament MVP’s and
Two Big South Freshmen-of-the-Year
 
Before taking the Head Coaching position for the Winthrop University Eagles, McCartney spent one season as an Assistant Coach with the Oklahoma Sooners volleyball program and four years as Head Coach leading the Bellevue University program.  He led the Bellevue Bruins program to a 115-51 overall record, recruited and coached several academic and athletic All-Americans and brought the program to national prominence.

McCartney is a native of Papillion, Neb. and started his coaching career in 1991 as an assistant at Eastern Kentucky University. He served in that capacity for two seasons before accepting the same position at Indiana State University, which he held from 1993-95.

McCartney also played on the collegiate and professional levels. He was both an Academic and Collegiate Club All-American while playing for Graceland College from 1983-87. He went on to play for the USAV Open National Champions, Nike Molten (Los Angeles, California) in 1988 before competing professionally from 1989-91 in Umea, Sweden for Team IKSU.

A 1983 graduate of Papillion High School (Neb.), McCartney holds an undergraduate degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Economics and Finance from Graceland College and a master's degree in Sports Administration from Eastern Kentucky University.

McCartney has been married for 20 years to Andrea, who serves as the program’s Associate Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator. Together they have a daughter Kate (16), and son James (14).