New Coaches, Same Results?: LIU Brooklyn's Ken Ko and St. Francis' Igor Zagoruiko

Volleyball and water polo are two sports that do not typically excite college fans. How many can name a single member of the U.S. men’s or women’s national volleyball teams? Anyone who knows anything about water polo will admit that it’s a tough game to follow, let alone sell.

Except, perhaps, in Downtown Brooklyn, where Long Island University and St. Francis College consistently and successfully compete in the two sports in NCAA Division I. For much of the past eleven years LIU’s women’s volleyball team has dominated the Northeast Conference, winning nine conference titles and representing the NEC in the NCAA Women’s Volleyball Tournament. Last year at the Spartan Invitational in East Lansing, the Blackbirds knocked off 25th-ranked Michigan State, the first time ever that an NEC volleyball team had defeated a top-25 squad.

And in water polo, despite fielding one of the NCAA’s smallest rosters, the St. Francis Terriers regularly dominate their East Coast rivals, including Brown, Navy and Princeton. Since 2005, the Terriers have won the Collegiate Water Polo Association’s men’s championship four times, representing the East at the NCAA Men’s Water Polo Tournament in 2005, 2010, 2012 and 2013.

Which is why recent coaching changes at these two programs bear watching.

What’s Happened at LIU?

When head coach Kyle Robinson, the winningest coach in LIU volleyball history, left last April to take a job as a top assistant at Oklahoma, Ken Ko, University of San Francisco associate head coach, was named the program’s seventh coach. Over a 20-year career Ko has worked under successful coaches at the University of Florida, Washington State, Cal-State Fullerton and Colgate as well as USF.

“He has seen how these coaches have built strong programs, and I anticipate he will be able to replicate that success at LIU,” Dale Starr, head coach of NEC rival Robert Morris, said by email. “Any time you replace a successful coach there is a transition period, and it all really comes down to getting the players to buy into what you are trying to do as a coach.”

The change in coaching —coupled with the graduation of Annika Foit and Vera Djuric, two of the strongest players in program history—has resulted so far in a reversal of fortune for LIU.

Opening their season with one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country, the Blackbirds have stumbled to a 3-12 start. Losses to Arizona (13th-ranked team in the country), Ohio State (#15) and Oregon (#11) were predictable; what was not was a 3 sets to 1 road loss to Bryant on September 27, which snapped LIU’s record of 47 straight Northeast Conference regular season wins.

Robert Morris then deepened the Blackbirds’ doldrums, sweeping host LIU 3-0 last Saturday in Brooklyn. Not only was the Colonials win their first over LIU after 10 straight losses, it ended a four-year stretch of Blackbird home dominance over NEC opponents dating back to a 3-1 loss to Sacred Heart in the 2011 NEC final.

With two losses in four NEC contests so far this season, LIU has already equaled its regular season conference losses the past four years (58-2).

St. Francis Water Polo: Back to the Future?

By contrast, the St. Francis men’s water polo program is enjoying an unexpected degree of success

Despite an undersized pool and limited financial support, men’s water polo at St. Francis has been the college’s most successful athletic program over the last decade.

When Srdjan Mihaljevic, who guided St. Francis to the 2013 NCAA Men’s Water Polo Final Four, including a 6-5 victory over UC San Diego in the first-ever NCAA play-in game, retired after the 2014 season, a storied era came to a close. Mihaljevic has been involved directly with the Terriers since arriving from Serbia in 1997 as a freshman, first as a player for four years, then as a volunteer assistant, fundraiser, assistant coach and finally head coach for the 2013–14 seasons.

During Mihaljevic’s 17 years with the Terriers they enjoyed a level of athletic achievement never before seen on St. Francis’ compact Brooklyn Heights campus: four Eastern championships and NCAA appearances, nine CWPA Northern Division titles (2004 -2008; 2010–2013).

Igor Zagoruiko’s hiring last April represented a change in direction. Unlike his predecessor, not only was the Kazakhstan native from outside the St. Francis water polo family, Zagoruiko’s nationality is a departure from the Eastern European (Croatia, Serbia and Hungary) talent pipeline that has regularly replenished the Terrier roster.

Introducing new coaching and conditioning techniques, the rookie St. Francis coach has had an immediate impact. The Terriers (7-4; 4-0 Northern Division)—with almost half of their roster composed of freshmen—have exceeded expectations and may perhaps be the East’s surprise club this season.

Carl Quigley, who has spent more than forty years around the program as a player, head coach (1975 to 2009) and associate Athletic Director, is impressed by his successor’s ability.

“In Igor we have a different style of coach with a calmer coaching style…his game preparation [is] notable as is the discipline his team has exhibited thus far,” Quigley said last week.

“The sky’s the limit looking toward the future of SFC water polo.”

With new coaches leading the way, time will tell if Blackbird volleyball and Terrier water polo finish this season in their accustomed place: competing in the NCAAs.

With Chip Brenner

PHOTO CAPTION: St. Francis’ Igor Zagoruiko and LIU Brooklyn’s Ken Ko
PHOTO CREDIT: St. Francis Athletics and Bob Dea