Nike Volleyball Camp at Westminster Christian Academy

Ben Briney was named 2022 AVCA Girls High School Region 6 Coach of the Year!

This past season Coach Briney led the Westminster Christian Academy Wildcats to back-to-back state championships. The team finished the season with a 32-2-5 record, to finish the season with the most wins in the last 23 years at the school. Coach Briney was also named the 2022 Missouri High School Volleyball Coaches Association Class 4 Coach of the Year.

In his first season with the team had an impressive 2021 Missouri Class 4 State Championship, the first state championship since 2012, as well as having the most wins since 2012. Coach Briney was named the Missouri High School Volleyball Coaches Association Class 4 Coach of the year for 2021!

Over the past two seasons at Westminster, Coach Briney has had 10 of his players receive All-District honors, 7 All-State, 3 AVCA All Region, and 1 AVCA All-American.

Ben Briney is the former Women's Head Volleyball Coach at Truman State University, completing his 12th season in the fall of 2020 and his 15th season overall at the university after serving as the program’s top assistant from 2005-2008.

Coach Briney's teams have always scheduled some of the top competitions in Division II Volleyball. The Bulldogs had an impressive streak of 29 straight winning seasons from 1990-2018. His 245 match victories is second on the all-time wins list at Truman trailing 12-year head coach Debbie Masten's 262 wins.

During his time at Truman, Briney led the Bulldogs to six NCAA postseason tournament appearances and 42 total selections to all-conference teams. In addition, he coached middle blocker Megan Sharpe to becoming the program’s first four-time AVCA all-American, including being named the National Freshman of the Year in 2009. Two players from his 2014 squad - Allie Brak and Ali Patterson - earned back-to-back AVCA All-American accolades, while Molly Sinclair, a 2011 graduate, was named CoSIDA Academic all-District following her junior season.

Two of his most impressive seasons at Truman came in the 2016 and 2014 seasons. The 2016 campaign looked like it would be a rebuilding year for the Bulldog volleyball program with 12 underclassmen on the roster. Briney’s young squad was tested early by playing seven teams ranked in the AVCA top 25 in the first 14 matches to start the year. The team found itself with only three wins, but following the loss to Rockhurst inside Pershing Arena on the night of Friday, Sept. 30, the Bulldogs began to gel. The Purple and White proceeded to close out the regular season with a 12-5 record and went into the GLVC Tournament as the No. 2 seed in the West Division. Truman would take the tournament by storm with wins over Drury in the quarterfinals (3-1), No. 15 Lewis in the semifinals (3-2) and McKendree in the finals (3-0), marking the program’s second GLVC title in three years. That effort earned the Bulldogs their 15th NCAA Tournament appearance in the last 17 seasons, in addition to their 27th-straight season with a winning record.

In 2014, he earned GLVC Coach of the Year honors after leading the Bulldogs to the Midwest region’s No. 1 seed and a 29-4 overall record. He coached Brak to the GLVC’s Player of the Year award, while fellow senior Abby Moser was named the GLVC’s Libero of the Year, as well. The Bulldogs won the GLVC West Division with a 17-1 record and carried the conference’s top seed through the league tournament en route to a tournament title – defeating McKendree in the championship match.

Briney has coached nine different players – Sarah Shearman (05/06), Kelsey Wackerman (05/06), Micaela Walter (05), Allie Cherven (06/07/08), Melissa Keck (07/08), Eli Medina (08), Sharpe (09/10/11/12), Brak (13/14), and Patterson (13/14) – who have been named AVCA all-Americans during his stints on the Truman sideline. His players have demonstrated success in the classroom also, as evidenced by numerous players being named to all-MIAA and all-GLVC Academic Honor Rolls.

During his tenure as an assistant, the Bulldogs advanced to the NCAA Division II tournament in all four seasons, won two South Central regional championships and advanced to the national semifinals one time (2008). He helped coached two players to MIAA MVP awards and led the team to its first No. 1 ranking in the AVCA top-25 coaches’ poll in school history.

Briney was the assistant coach for the Carolina Region Junior High Performance Team – a feeder program for the U.S. National Team – during the summers of 2004 and 2005 and came to Truman after serving as an assistant coach for two seasons at St. Andrews College in North Carolina. At Div. II St. Andrews, he helped lead the Knights to a 40-25 overall record and a trip to the conference finals in 2003. The following year, the team tied a school record with 14 conference victories and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

Briney coached seven all-conference athletes at St. Andrews and one conference freshman of the year. The Knights also excelled academically during his final two seasons, ranking 10th in the nation in 2003 with a 3.54 team GPA. Briney was also the assistant athletic trainer at St. Andrews, where he helped with the coverage of all 14 sports at the school.

Other volleyball experience includes being a member of the Athletics in Action men's volleyball team that toured Nigeria on an international sports ministry trip in 2003 and also being an assistant coach of the Carolina Region High Performance youth team in the summers of 2004 and 2005.

The Missouri native graduated from Southwest Baptist (Mo.) University in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science in Sport Management and a minor in Psychology. He became a certified athletic trainer in April of 2002 prior to earning his Masters of Education from SBU in 2004. That same year, he passed his strength and conditioning test to gain CSCS credentials from the National Strength and Conditioning Association.

Jason Skoch, a veteran of NCAA Division II volleyball who has guided six of his teams into the Elite Eight, began his tenure as Oklahoma Christian’s volleyball coach on June 3, 2021.

In his first season with the Eagles, he guided them to a 12-18 record, a spot in the Lone Star Conference tournament and an upset of No. 5-seeded Texas A&M-Commerce in the opening round of that event.

Before arriving at OC, in 15 seasons as a Division II coach at Truman State (Mo.), West Texas A&M and Saint Leo (Fla.), Skoch posted a 437-121 record (a .783 winning percentage) and was named as a conference coach of the year five times and as a regional coach of the year once. He’s won 13 conference titles and made 12 NCAA tournament appearances. Nine of his teams have won more than 30 games in a season.

A native of nearby Yukon, Skoch graduated in 1998 from Oklahoma State, where he played club volleyball. He’s a former club player not only at OSU but also at Memphis and Penn State. He earned his master’s degree from the latter in 2001.

Skoch picked up his 400th coaching win on Sept. 8, 2018, against Midwestern State (Texas). He has guided 69 all-conference players and 35 all-Americans at Truman State West Texas A&M and Saint Leo, enjoying considerable success along the way.

He spent only one season at Saint Leo, but it was memorable, as he coached the Lions in 2019 to a 24-11 record and their first Division II South Region championship (despite being stuck with a No. 5 seed in the region tournament) and Elite Eight berth. Saint Leo’s 2020 season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before coaching in Florida, Skoch dominated the Lone Star Conference – of which OC now is a member – during his 10 seasons at West Texas A&M from 2009 to 2018. He guided the Buffaloes to five LSC championships, seven NCAA regional appearances and three South Central Region titles and Elite Eight berths.

The four-time LSC coach of the year (2010, 2011, 2013, 2014) helped West Texas A&M set the Division II record for longest conference winning streak at 87 games – a run which began in 2006 and continued until Sept. 17, 2011. Under Skoch, the Buffaloes recorded perfect conference records in 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2014.

In 2009, West Texas A&M finished 39-4 and advanced to the Division II championship match and in 2013, the Buffaloes made the national semifinals in a season in which Skoch was honored as the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s South Central Region coach of the year.

In his first head-coaching job, at Truman State from 2005 to 2008, Skoch also enjoyed considerable success, posting a 137-22 record and making four trips to the NCAA tournament, including regional titles and Elite Eight appearances in 2005 and 2008. The Bulldogs made the national semifinals the latter season.

The Bulldogs won Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association regular-season and tournament titles in 2006 (when Skoch was named as the MIAA’s coach of the year) and 2007 and spent a portion of the 2005 season ranked No. 1 in Division II. Truman State never fell out of the top 25 in the AVCA poll during Skoch’s tenure.

He arrived at Truman State after one season as an assistant coach at Mississippi State in 2004 and a season as an assistant coach at Central Oklahoma in 2003. He also spent one season as the head coach with the Stillwater Volleyball Club and the Kaeppa Oklahoma Charge Volleyball Club in Oklahoma. He’s a former club player not only at OSU but also at Memphis and Penn State. He earned his master’s degree from the latter in 2001.

Jason and his wife, Karen, have three sons, Jay, Kyle and Kade, and one daughter, Emmie