Ann Marie Larese - Women's Volleyball Coach - Dartmouth College Athletics

Ann Marie Larese

Title:
Head Coach
Email:
Ann.Marie.Larese@Dartmouth.EDU

Ann Marie Larese begins her 17th season as the head coach of the Big Green volleyball program. She was hired as Dartmouth’s first full-time head coach in June 1994. Larese led the team to five record-setting years in a row from 1995-1999, which were highlighted by a record-breaking 24 wins and a trip to the Ivy League title match in 1997, an undefeated season at home, a school record of 14 wins in a row, a first ever regional ranking and a second seed in the Ivy Tourney in 1998. The program reached the Ivy League tournament semifinals in 1999 in a year that marked the first and only time Dartmouth hosted the event in Leede Arena.

From 2001-2004, the team struggled with injuries and to find a consistent starting line-up in its quest to make it over .500 and regain a position in the top of the league. In 2005 all of that changed. The Big Green banded together and put together a string of wins that gave Dartmouth volleyball one of its best starts, going 9-3 over its first 12 games. It was the best start since the Big Green went 10-2 in its first 12 in 1998. In 2006, Dartmouth continued to improve going .500 for the second year in a row and the second time in six seasons while securing a coveted Ivy League top-four placement for the first time in five years.

In 2007, a 15-9 record gave the Big Green its most wins since 1999 as the team finished in the top half of the league standings for the second year in a row. Highlights from this season include winning the N.C. State and Harvard Invitationals and finishing second in the URI Tournament, starting the Ivy season 5-0 with five straight three-set wins, finishing with a winning record overall and in the League for the first time since 1998, and having a player named first team All-Ivy.

In June 2007, Larese was asked to assemble and coach a women’s collegiate team that traveled to the Netherlands to compete in the prestigious DKV tourney in Groningen, Holland. This team was made up of four Ivy players, including Dartmouth’s Katie Hirsch ’08 and Sandy Barbut ’08. Both competing American teams finished in the semifinals, a first in the history of the tournament. In 2008, Larese coached another women’s team that toured the European Alps throughout Austria and Germany. This team was made up of three Ivy players, including Megan MacGregor ’10. This tour made stops in two former Olympic cities of Innsbruck, Austria and Munich, Germany and played against the top level women’s club teams of those cities.

In 2009 Larese traveled back to Austria along with first-time visits to Italy and Slovenia with a mixed collegiate team that consisted of three Ivy players including Morgan Covington ’10 and former player Hirsch. In 2010, Larese was an assistant coach for a team that traveled to Barbados, going 3-1 against the Barbados Women's National team.

For the past 14 years, Larese has directed and lectured at the Nike Girls Volleyball camp, bringing the game of volleyball to young athletes in the Upper Valley and beyond. She has presented at the Volleyball Festival Education Sessions in the summers of 2006, 2008 and 2009 on “Volleyball Opportunities at Non-Scholarship Colleges.”

In addition to coaching, Larese was asked to present a lecture to fellow coaches and the Dartmouth Center for Advancement of Learning faculty group in January 2008, entitled “Identifying Areas for Team Progression through Statistical Analysis in Volleyball.” She discussed a brief statistical analysis and a variety of techniques and strategies she employed to improve her team’s performance in the last four years based on leadership development, skill development, video analysis and game-time preparations.

Larese is a 1989 exercise science graduate of the University of Massachusetts, where she was a four-year letterwinner and two-year starter on the Minutewomen’s volleyball team. Her squad was nationally ranked as a Division II team her freshman year and then transitioned to Division I into the Atlantic 10 Conference her second season. The combined record of the team in the four years Larese competed was 105-33, with three top-four finishes in the A-10 Conference.

Larese is a native of Meriden, Conn. and recently was inducted into the Francis T. Maloney High School Athletic Hall of Fame.

Ann Marie Larese on Dartmouth: "Dartmouth offers a unique academic environment that enables students to enhance both their professional and personal growth in and out of the classroom. By encouraging involvement in a broad range of activities and classes, Dartmouth has established a leadership role in developing individuals who can meet the challenges of and succeed in the face of an ever-changing workplace and diversifying world."