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Fort Lewis College Athletics

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Giedre Tarnauskaite

Giedre Tarnauskaite will begin her fifth season in charge of the Skyhawks volleyball program in 2024. 

In the 2024 season, the team saw improvements across the board. The team finished 13-13 overall, the most wins since Tarnauskaite took over the program and most since 2010. The Skyhawks hosted a six-team tournament inside of Whalen Gymnasium in early September and ended the season with a 7-4 record at home. Three student-athletes were named to the All-RMAC teams, including junior Alexis Hobie (Second Team), sophomore Ella Butler (Second Team), and junior Natalia Lambos (Honorable Mention). In addition, five earned All-Academic nods and two went on to receive Academic All-District distinction.

Tarnauskaite's squad saw success in the 2023 season, ending the season in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament quarterfinal. Fort Lewis owned a 10-15 overall record in 2022, including an 8-10 record in conference play. The team faced eight nationally ranked foes throughout the year, including three matches versus No. 1-ranked MSU Denver. Fort Lewis claimed four sweeps and six, four set wins throughout the season.

The Skyhawks averaged 1.6 aces per set to establish a program record—previously 1.4 aces per set in 2021. The team also improved its hitting efficiency by nearly 20 points while facing one of the toughest schedules in recent history. The front row averaged 1.7 blocks per set which were the most since an identical average in the 2019 season. The duo of sophomore Alexis Hobie and freshman Ella Butler were named to the All-RMAC teams, Hobie on the Second Team and Butler finding a spot on the Honorable Mention list.

Tarnauskaite completed her second season as the Head Coach of the Fort Lewis College volleyball program in 2021, finishing the season with an overall record of 6-16 and a 6-12 mark in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play. The Skyhawks were 5-4 on their home court with three of the wins coming in exciting, five-set fashion. The team narrowly missed out on the RMAC Volleyball Tournament, but will look to a young core of returners to carry the Skyhawks even further next season. Freshman outside hitter Alexis Hobie was named to the All-RMAC Honorable Mention team after starting every match for the blue and gold.
 
In her first season at the helm, the Skyhawks finished the spring 2020-2021 season with an overall record of 4-9 while playing a conference-only schedule due to the global pandemic. The season was highlighted by a five-set win over No. 22 University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, the program’s first win over an AVCA Coaches Poll Top-25 opponent since moving to the NCAA Division II level in 1994. The team enjoyed offensive improvements which included career marks for several attackers and a season-best .305 hitting percentage in a sweep over Adams State on Jan. 28.
 
The steady development of the team under Tarnauskaite resulted in three players earning All-RMAC Honorable Mention honors to cap off the 2021 campaign. Honorees included outside hitter Alexa Treguboff, sophomore middle blocker Rylee Johnson, and sophomore defensive specialist Kamryn Lopez-all of which earned career marks throughout the season. The Skyhawks showed academic prowess in the 2020-2021 academic year as well, placing five athletes on the RMAC All-Academic Team and earning the highest team GPA among FLC student-athletes in the Fall semester.    

Tarnauskaite comes to FLC after one season at Seattle University as an Assistant Coach/Co-Recruiting Coordinator and three seasons (2016-18) as an Assistant Coach and Recruiting Coordinator at the University of Montana.

During Tarnauskaite's time in Missoula, the Grizzlies improved their win total each season, including in 2018 when they qualified for the Big Sky tournament for the first time since 2014. The 2018 season marked the highest win total Montana had since 2013, in addition to its most conference wins, home wins and road wins in five years.

From 2016 to 2018, Montana improved its Big Sky and national ranks in every statistical category, including assists (11th to seventh and an increase of 91 spots nationally) and digs (11th to seventh and an increase of 109 spots nationally), two positions Tarnauskaite worked closely with.

A native of Kaunas, Lithuania, Tarnauskaite moved to the United States in 2001 to play at Jefferson College, a two-year institution competing at the NJCAA level based in Missouri.

She transferred to the NCAA Division I level to play for Arkansas State as a junior, where she'd go on to help ASU to 46 wins in her two years. She earned second-team All-Sun Belt honors in 2003 and Sun Belt Player of the Year accolades as a senior in 2004 after leading ASU to a share of the Sun Belt's East Division championship. Tarnauskaite was also named AVCA honorable mention all-region and academic all-district as a senior.

Tarnauskaite earned her degree in International Business from Arkansas State in 2005. She'd spend the next six years working as a legal assistant for a prosecutor in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in addition to coaching for the Ozark Volleyball Club, prior to moving to the Pacific Northwest to pursue the coaching profession.

In addition to her college coaching experiences, she also worked for the Athena Volleyball Academy in Portland. In July 2018, she served as an assistant coach at USA Volleyball's High Performance Championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Tarnauskaite added another significant benchmark in her career in 2019, when she served as an assistant coach for the USA Youth Continental High Performance team, an invite-only coaching position, and worked alongside some of the top college coaches in the country.

In her native country, Tarnauskaite won multiple Lithuanian national championships with her junior club team and played for two years on the country's junior national team. She was chosen at the age of 16 to play for Kaunas's women's club team, giving her the opportunity to play at tournaments throughout Europe. And in 2000, she and teammate Raimonda Strielkauskaite finished seventh at the European Junior Beach Volleyball Championships in Germany.