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SVU Alum Is Wildcats’ First Male Volleyball Head Coach
Rockbridge County High School has hired Gabe Wagner, who brings coaching and playing experience from Southern Virginia University, as its new head girls volleyball coach.
In a media release last Wednesday, Rockbridge County schools officially announced the hire, and Wagner met some of the current RC players at an open gym that evening.
Wagner, 25, is the Wildcats’ first male head volleyball coach since the school opened in 1992. The late Mike Burch served as an assistant coach for RC in recent years, but the Wildcats haven’t had a male head coach until now. RC has no boys volleyball team.
In taking on the new position, Wagner replaces Kassidy Beagan, who stepped down after coaching the Wildcats for the last two years to spend more time with her husband, Joshua, and three young sons. During her time as head coach, Beagan, a 2016 RC graduate who played volleyball for RC, led the Wildcats to their sixth and seventh consecutive Valley District regular-season titles.
Last year, the Wildcats went 27-2 overall and 12-0 in the district, ending the season with a 3-2 loss to Christiansburg in the Class 3 state quarterfinals. The loss followed 23 consecutive wins, the district tournament title and the Wildcats’ third Region 3C title in program history. The season-ending match was the Wildcats’ third state quarterfinal appearance in program history.
Stepping down was “a super hard decision,” said Beagan, who will continue to live in the area with her family. Beagan, who works at Seasons’ Yield Bakery and Cafe, said coaching the Wildcats “was definitely a good lesson for me. I learned a lot about life experience and trying to be a positive person in young women’s lives.” She is confident about the Wildcats’ potential under Wagner and said she will continue to support the Wildcats and hopes to make it to some matches this season.
In addition to coaching the Wildcats, Wagner is currently an assistant men’s volleyball coach for the SVU men’s volleyball team, and he works part-time as a waiter at the Lexington Golf & Country Club. This past spring, under the direction of head coach Tom Peterson, SVU went 29-1 overall and 9-0 in the Continental Volleyball Conference, winning the CVC championship and ending its season with a 3-2 loss to New York University in the NCAA Division III quarterfinals.
Wagner attended SVU and was a setter for the volleyball team, graduating last year with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology. Prior to SVU, Wagner played four years of varsity boys volleyball for Benjamin Franklin High School in Queen Creek, Ariz., about 35 miles from Phoenix.
For Wagner’s senior year with the Knights, SVU head coach Tom Peterson asked if Wagner would step in as an assistant coach after assistant coach Jon Baker, who is now the associate head coach for the SVU women’s volleyball team, stepped down from coaching the men. Wagner decided to end his collegiate playing days and serve as a student assistant coach. He said that reality hit him then, and he started thinking about what he could do beyond college. “I was going to be our second-string setter, sitting behind my best friend,” said Wagner.
In the 2023 spring season, the Knights went 18-4 overall and 7-1 in the CVC, ending the year with a 3-1 loss to Vassar College in the NCAA Division III quarterfinals.
While coaching at SVU, Wagner said he learned a lot from Peterson, who has more than 30 years of collegiate coaching experience and is one of the most decorated volleyball coaches in the country. “He’s helped me a whole bunch,” said Wagner.
Along with his coaching experience at SVU, Wagner brings three years of coaching experience in Arizona. After graduating from high school in 2017, Wagner coached the Rush Volleyball 14-and-under travel club team. Last weekend, Wagner made a visit back to Arizona to work with five other college coaches in running the Aspire Volleyball Club camp.
Wagner comes from a volleyball family. He grew up the middle child of five, with two brothers and two sisters. His great-grandfather, Lynn Bedford, was a legendary volleyball coach in the 1970s and early 1980s, leading the Mesa Community College (Ariz.) women’s volleyball team to the national championship in 1977.
Before attending SVU, Wagner studied at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Arizona. In 2019, two SVU coaches, Peterson and Baker, ran a camp that Wagner helped with in Arizona. Wagner told them he’d love to try out for the SVU men’s volleyball team, and he ended up starting school at SVU in January 2020.
Wagner and his wife, Nicole, will celebrate their third anniversary on Monday, the first day of RC volleyball tryouts.
After seeing the RC head coaching position advertised, Wagner said he applied because “coaching volleyball is what I want to do. I want to continue to get better at it. The more I can do, the better.”
Looking forward to working with the Wildcats, Wagner said, “Personally, I expect a good amount of success. I can’t tell you exactly what that’s going to look like for this team.”
From last year’s team, the Wildcats graduated five all-district players: McKenzie Burch, Maddie Dahl, Sophia Perlozzo, Nala Shearer and Sophie Vaught. Dahl was the Region 3C player of the year, and she, Burch and Vaught were all-state selections. Dahl and Shearer will both play Division III volleyball, Dahl at Berry College in Georgia and Shearer at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania.
Despite these losses, the Wildcats have young players with a lot of potential, and Wagner said last Wednesday’s open gym “leads me to believe we can make this team very successful.”
RC athletic director Adam Haynes was excited about hiring Wagner. Haynes said Wagner “has a lot of passion for the game of volleyball. He has shown to have really good leadership skills and will run the volleyball team with great character and integrity.”
To help him coach the Wildcats, Wagner will have two returning assistant coaches, Haileigh Patterson and head junior varsity coach Jaden Harrison.
After two jamborees and a scrimmage, RC’s season is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, Aug. 27, at local rival Parry McCluer in Buena Vista, starting with junior varsity action at 5:30 p.m. We’ll have season previews for the Wildcats and Fighting Blues in our Aug. 21 newspaper.
WAGNER
