Julianne Sitch Named UChicago Head Men’s Soccer Coach

CHICAGO – College of Chicago Director of Athletics & Recreation Angie Torain introduced the hiring of Julianne Sitch as head males’s soccer coach on Wednesday.

“Julianne has performed and coached on the highest ranges,” Torain stated. “She is aware of the sport of soccer and what it takes to achieve success within the classroom and on the sphere, particularly at UChicago. We’re extraordinarily excited to have her again with the Maroons.”

Sitch returns to the Hyde Park campus after two earlier stints as an assistant coach for the UChicago ladies’s soccer workforce. She was a part of the teaching employees for 3 seasons from 2015-17 and subsequently rejoined for the autumn 2019 marketing campaign.

As lead assistant coach for the Maroons, Sitch was additionally this system’s recruiting coordinator. She devised sport plans and workforce scouts, whereas organizing workforce and particular person coaching classes.

With Sitch on employees, the Maroons put collectively one in every of their most profitable multi-year runs in program historical past. Their cumulative document stood at 53-13-1 for a .798 profitable proportion. UChicago certified for the NCAA Division III Championship discipline all three seasons, reaching the semifinals in 2016 and the nationwide championship sport in 2017.

The 2017 nationwide runner-up workforce broke a bevy of college data with a legendary fall season. The squad set new program-best marks for wins (22), profitable proportion (.917), longest profitable streak (17), objectives (80), assists (69), complete factors (229), shutouts (18), fewest objectives allowed (7) and objectives towards common (0.29).

UChicago’s dominating play was acknowledged with quite a few accolades throughout that point. From 2015-17, the Maroons obtained 11 complete All-American awards whereas producing two D3soccer.com Midfielders of the 12 months, 12 All-Area honorees, two College Athletic Affiliation (UAA) Gamers of the 12 months, two UAA Rookies of the 12 months and 13 All-UAA alternatives. This system additionally collected two CoSIDA Tutorial All-America accolades and three NSCAA Scholar All-America awards.

UChicago was voted because the UAA Teaching Workers of the 12 months in 2016 and 2017, whereas additionally garnering NSCAA Central Area Teaching Workers of the 12 months in 2016.

Sitch turns into the second lady to at present function head coach of a males’s soccer workforce inside the UAA.

Since 2020, Sitch has served as Assistant Ladies’s Soccer Coach for the Chicago Pink Stars, who compete within the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League (NWSL). She has been deeply concerned with workforce and particular person coaching classes, facilitating particular person participant improvement plans, and organizing participant profiles for the school draft. The 2021 Pink Stars squad was a NWSL Finalist and the 2020 workforce was a NWSL Problem Cup Finalist.

Concurrently, Sitch was the Head Ladies’s Soccer Coach of the Chicago Pink Stars Reserves. The 2021 reserves gained the Ladies’s Premier Soccer League (WPSL) Nice Lakes Convention championship.

Sitch beforehand coached on the NCAA Division I degree as assistant ladies’s soccer coach for College of Illinois – Chicago (2018-19).

On the worldwide degree, Sitch labored with the U.S. Soccer Youth Nationwide Staff (2019-20). She was the Assistant Coach for the Below-16 Women Nationwide Staff (GNT), which took first place within the UEFA Ladies’s Worldwide Improvement Event in Portugal.

“I need to take this time to thank Director of Athletics and Recreation Angie Torain and the hiring committee for this unimaginable alternative to steer the boys’s soccer program at The College of Chicago,” Sitch stated. “UChicago is an unbelievable establishment and continues to carry a particular place in my coronary heart and I’m past excited to be again encouraging our student-athletes to be their greatest. I’m extraordinarily humbled and keen to steer the boys’s soccer program and proceed to construct on their historical past of success.”

A local of Oswego, In poor health., Sitch was Illinois Gatorade Ladies’s Excessive Faculty Soccer Participant of the 12 months in 2002. She went on to compile record-setting numbers at DePaul College. Sitch broke the varsity’s profession data in factors (90), objectives (32) and assists (26). Her collegiate honors included Second Staff NSCAA All-American (2003), Convention USA Participant of the 12 months (2003) and First Staff All-Massive East (2005). She earned her bachelor’s diploma from DePaul in Health Administration & Bodily Schooling in 2007.

Sitch performed for the Area II Olympic Improvement Program, the Below-19 U.S. Nationwide Staff, and the Below-21 U.S. Nationwide Staff. She was a part of the U-21 nationwide workforce that gained the Nordic Cup in 2004.

As an expert soccer participant, Sitch was drafted by Sky Blue FC of the Ladies’s Skilled Soccer (WPS) in 2009. The workforce went on to win the nationwide championship in that inaugural season. Domestically, she performed professionally for the Chicago Pink Stars, Western New York Flash and Atlanta Beat. Sitch performed on the worldwide stage for Melbourne Victory in Australia, in addition to Hammarby IF and Balinge IF in Sweden.