NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- Christopher Newport University head volleyball coach Lindsay Birch announced the hiring of LORA YANKAUSKAS as assistant volleyball coach today.
 
"I am very excited to add Lora to our coaching staff," said Birch. "She brings a wealth of experience and knowledge of the game to the position.  I'm very confident Lora will play a significant role in growing our program towards a National Championship."
 
A former All-Conference performer at Rutgers, Yankauskas has pieced together an extensive résumé working as a club coach in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Beginning in 2010, she served as a head coach with the Synergy Volleyball Club and Court Authority Volleyball Academy in Allentown, Pennsylvania. During her time there, she was awarded an open-level team that earned an honorable mention ranking by prepvolleyball.com.
 
Prior to arriving in the Lehigh Valley, she served as the 17 & 18 Elite Head Coach for the Cut Shot Volleyball Club in Wyckoff, New Jersey. From 2007-10, she also worked as an assistant girls and boys volleyball coach at Fair Lawn.
 
On the national stage, Yankauskas spent the past four years as a court coach and evaluator for the USA Volleyball High Performance Program. During that time, she led drills, managed athleticism testing, and helped assess which athletes were capable of competing in the high-performance program.
 
Prior to joining the coaching ranks, Yankauskas pieced together an outstanding collegiate career at Rutgers. A native of Paramus, New Jersey, she earned four letters as a member of the Scarlet Knights and was selected as the team's Most Valuable Player during each of her final two seasons. A perennial member of the All-BIG EAST teams, she joined the prestigious 1000-kill club and still ranks sixth on the program's all-time list with 1,103.
 
"I am beyond excited and extremely fortunate to start my coaching career here at CNU," said Yankauskas. "I could not ask for a better school, program, group of young ladies and head coach to learn from. I am looking forward to contributing to the winning program here and really help in making CNU the best we can be."
 
Yankauskas joins a program that is coming off its finest season in school history after the Captains went 38-5 while racing all the way to the NCAA National Championship match.