Cullowhee, N.C. – Western Carolina head volleyball coach Karen Glover announced the elevation of Katie Butler to her top assistant coaching position as the squad enters the spring ahead of the 2026 fall season.
Butler joined Glover on the Catamount bench in 2025, where she worked with junior setter Katie Boney, who collected five weekly awards from the conference on the way to becoming the first Catamount to win the Southern Conference Setter of the Year honor. Boney hit the 1,000-assist plateau in 2025 with a SoCon-best 1,066, the first WCU setter to do so since Hannah Price (1,023) in 2019. Boney's 10.25 assists per set average ranked her 34th nationally.
At the end of the 2025 season, Butler was selected to receive the Togetherness, Empowerment, Accessibility, Mentoring (T.E.A.M.) Award from the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA). She was chosen to participate in coaching education programming pathways and mentoring functions at the AVCA Convention.
Prior to joining the Catamounts a season ago, she was a head coach for the University of Rhode Island Men's Club DIII team while also serving as an assistant for the men's DI team. The DIII team finished fourth in the region while the DI team advanced to nationals held in Phoenix.
She also served as a head coach for USANY VBC for the 18u and 16u squad. Butler also coached camps at Rhode Island, Bryant, New Hampshire and West Point.
Butler was a 2024 recipient of the AVCA Student-Athlete Demonstrator Scholarship, the successful scholarship program has included more than 100 players. In addition to responsibilities during on-court sessions, the group will be able to attend other educational seminars—many of which focus on professional and personal development for coaches—and learn more about the profession by networking with the hundreds of coaches attending the Convention. One of the factors in the selection of the demonstrators was their interest in pursuing a coaching career.
Originally from Rockleigh, N.J., Butler was a four-year letterwinner who played at North Texas as a freshman before finishing her collegiate career at Rhode Island with a degree in communication studies.
Western Carolina volleyball returns 10 players from the 2025 squad, who will be joined by a quartet of freshmen and two January transfers. Among the 10 returners are a trio of seniors led by Boney, libero Eda Yalcinkaya, and outside hitter Zoe Zudans. Libero Halley Tang and outside Peri Subat are the lone juniors, flanked by five returning sophomores in Elise Gurley, Evelyn Keefer, Samantha Kranzler, Tatum Sharp, and Danielle Wheat.
WCU's newcomers include middle blocker Brookelyn Nance (Gardner-Webb) and right-side Sophia Marini (Daytona State), with freshmen Leilani Ramos (Jupiter, Fla.), Taylor Baggett (Fayetteville, N.C.), Aiyana Harris (Mansfield, Texas), and Ashlyn Cobb (Delray Beach, Fla.), who each signed back in November 2025.
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