UWM's St. Clair Named Head Coach At California BaptistMILWAUKEE, Wis. (March 28, 2007) - Kristen St. Clair has resigned her post as an assistant coach with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee women's soccer team to accept the head coaching position at California Baptist University in Riverside, Calif. St. Clair will assume her position April 25 following the completion of the Panthers' spring schedule. "I thoroughly enjoyed working alongside Michael (Moynihan) and David (Nikolic) and with the players here at Milwaukee. It was a wonderful experience for me and I am thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the Milwaukee soccer family," St. Clair said. "I'm very excited for this opportunity. I now have the chance to be a head coach at a top university and be closer to family. It was not an opportunity I could pass up on both a personal and professional level." St. Clair joined the Milwaukee coaching staff last April and served as an assistant for the 2006 season when UWM set school records with 16 wins, 16 shutouts and a 0.44 goals against average. She worked closely with the goalkeepers as sophomore keeper Erin Kane broke a school and league record with a 0.49 GAA and tied her own school and league marks with 13 shutouts. Also, freshman Illana Bar-Av made three appearances in goal, not allowing a goal and posting shutouts in her first two collegiate starts. The Panthers won their seventh-straight Horizon League regular season championship and earned their first at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament. Milwaukee advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the second-straight year after outlasting Michigan in a penalty kick shootout. UWM then played No. 1 Notre Dame tough before falling, 1-0. "It was a brief stay for Kristen, but she had a big impact. She's very passionate about what she does, very committed and professional in terms of her integrity and character and that made for a tremendous fit for our program," head coach Michael Moynihan said. "While we'll miss all these things, those qualities will help her to be a successful head coach. We wish her the best of luck as she takes the reigns of her own program." For St. Clair, the location is a familiar one, as she hails from California, where she played collegiately at Westmont College in Santa Barbara and later with the Silicon Valley Red Devils of the Women's Premier Soccer League. She was a four-time All-American at Westmont and led the Warriors to an 8-1-2 record in the NAIA Tournament and the 1999 NAIA National Championship. As a coach, she got her start at Westmont, helping her alma mater to another national title in 2003 as goalkeeper coach. She later served as an assistant coach at UC-Santa Barbara from 2004-05. California Baptist went 11-6-1 last season under interim co-head coaches Sean Bowers and Wilt Kishimoto. The Lancers compete in the Golden State Athletics Conference, arguably one of the most competitive women's soccer conferences in NAIA, which featured four nationally-ranked teams at the end of the 2006 season. CBU is also just three years removed from its last NAIA Tournament appearance in 2004.
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