SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – Slippery Rock University director of athletics Roberta Page announced Friday that Thiel College director of volleyball Dylan Lasher will become the next head coach of the Slippery Rock University women's volleyball program.
 
Lasher, who currently serves as the director of volleyball and the head coach of both the men's and women's volleyball teams at Thiel, will begin his role at Slippery Rock next month at the conclusion of the Thiel men's volleyball season. His Tomcat squad has won 11 straight matches, is currently 18-6 overall and sits in first place in the Presidents' Athletic Conference with a 10-0 PAC record.
 
"We are excited to welcome Dylan as the new head coach of our volleyball program," said Page. "Dylan comes from a volleyball family with deep-rooted connections to the women's game in western Pennsylvania. His track record of leading successful programs, along with his coaching philosophy and commitment to enhancing the student-athlete experience, are things we are looking forward to bringing to The Rock."
 
Lasher is in his fifth season as the head men's volleyball coach at Thiel and added the role of head women's coach prior to the 2024 fall season. He inherited a women's program that went 3-22 in 2023 and immediately made it a contender in his first full season with the squad, guiding the Tomcats to a 17-9 record in 2024 and a return to the conference tournament. The 14-win improvement from 2023 to 2024 was the second-best year-to-year improvement among all 419 NCAA Division III women's volleyball programs last fall.
 
"I want to thank Dr. Page and Dr. Riley for putting their trust in me to lead this program moving forward," said Lasher. "I think there is a tremendous amount of potential within the program. Slippery Rock has established itself as a premier destination in this region that is thriving, so the opportunity to become part of the exciting things happening at The Rock is something I truly embrace. I hope to bring an exciting style of volleyball to SRU in the fall and I can't wait to connect with our student-athletes, alumni and fans to share that vision."
 
Following the fall season, Lasher turned his focus to the men's spring season and has Thiel rolling through the PAC with a perfect conference record. The Tomcats are 18-6 overall and 10-0 in conference play and are currently riding an 11-match win streak with two matches left in the regular season. The success of the program this spring has been built over his five-year tenure with the program, which began during the COVID shutdown with a 1-8 record in 2021. The team improved to 10-18 the year after and was .500 or better in each of the next two seasons, winning 29 matches across the 2023 and 2024 campaigns.
 
A former men's player and 2015 Thiel alumnus, Lasher returned to Thiel after starting an NCAA Division III men's volleyball program at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. He recruited 15 student-athletes to compete for the Millikin Big Blue during the program's inaugural season in 2019-20. The program won three matches and several players ranked in the top 10 individually in the College Conference of Illinois (CCIW) before the pandemic ended the season. He left Millikin for the opportunity to return to his Alma Mater.
 
Prior to his time at Millikin, Lasher was the women's volleyball head coach at Chatham University in Pittsburgh. He was named the Presidents' Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 2017 after leading the Cougars to a 17-11 record and their first-ever berth in the PAC Tournament. The Cougars broke more than 20 individual and team records under Lasher's tutelage and improved from eight wins to 17 wins from his first year to his second year.
 
On the women's side, Lasher has overseen two year-to-year improvements of nine or more matches at two different programs with a nine-win improvement from year one to year two at Chatham and a 14-win improvement in his first season at Thiel.
 
During his nine years as a collegiate head coach, Lasher has racked up 103 career victories, topping the 100-win milestone earlier this spring.
 
He earned a bachelor's degree from Thiel in 2015 after a successful playing career where he served as a team captain for two seasons and graduated as one of the top players in program history. He still ranks among the career leaders in numerous categories for the Tomcats, including kills, hitting percentage, service aces, digs and blocks.
 
A native of Ford City, Pennsylvania, Lasher comes from a volleyball family with his mother and younger sisters all being involved in the game. His mother Andrea continues to work as a head coach at the high school level and his sisters both played collegiately, including his younger sister Justyne, who played for him at Chatham.
 
Lasher will become the 13th head coach in the 55-year history of The Rock women's volleyball program. He takes over for acting head coach Erin Street, who guided SRU to a 12-14 overall record in 2024 in her lone season serving in the acting head coach role. Street, who spent 15 seasons as an assistant at SRU, announced earlier this week that she has accepted a coaching position at Carnegie Mellon University. One of Lasher's first tasks at SRU will be launching a search to fill the full-time assistant coaching position prior to the beginning of the 2025 fall season.
 
 

 
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