Assistant coaches take national honors

Assistant women’s basketball coach Steve Cochran and assistant men’s and women’s swimming coach Arthur Wang are winners of the second annual AFLAC National Assistant Coaches of the Year Award. Cochran and Wang are two of 500 high school and college assistant coaches from a field of more than 350,000 across the nation that were selected for the award.

Since joining the women’s basketball staff six years ago, Cochran and head coach Nancy Fahey have posted a 167-7 (.960) overall record in six seasons. During that stretch, the Bears have captured six straight University Athletic Association titles and four straight national championships, from 1998-2001, including back-to-back 30-0 seasons in 1999 and 2000. Cochran has also been a part of the UAA Coaching Staff of the Year all six seasons at WUSTL.

Wang has been at the University for just three seasons, but he has already left his mark. In his first two seasons, Wang and head coach Brad Shively’s squads enjoyed solid regular season campaigns and sent swimmers from both teams to the NCAA Championships. In 2001, the women’s contingent of four swimmers rolled up 76 points at the NCAA meet to take home 15th place.

Other updates

The men’s tennis team, headed to the championship round of the NCAA Tournament, played Middlebury College in the quarterfinals May 14 at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. The rounds occurred after Record press time. The semifinal rounds were May 15, followed by today’s third-place match and national championship.

The women’s tennis team has three individuals heading to the NCAA Division III Singles and Doubles Championships May 17-19 at the University of Redlands in Redlands, Calif. Senior Jenny Stein will compete in the 32-person singles competition, while WUSTL’s top doubles tandem of junior Rathi Mani and freshman Lauren Zwick will compete in the 16-team doubles competition.

The No. 22 softball team dropped both of its games in the NCAA Division III Tournament to finish the season 30-9. Sophomore Liz Swary was named to the Verizon Academic All-District VII first team softball squad as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America. Swary led the Bears in batting average (.481), hits (51), doubles (17), home runs (6), RBIs (49), slugging percentage (.830) and on-base-percentage (.549), and maintains a 3.91 grade-point average in economics.