Allison Lawrence, most recently on the coaching staff at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, has been hired on an interim basis to fill the University of Montana’s vacant assistant volleyball coaching position head coach Jerry Wagner announced this week. Lawrence replaces Kandice Kelly, who spent three seasons with the Grizzlies.

A search for a permanent replacement will be conducted at season’s end.

Kelly, who earned a master’s degree in business administration from Montana in 2009, stepped down earlier this summer to pursue a career in business.

The addition of Lawrence to Wagner’s staff – which includes assistant coach Gina Schmidt – brings together a seemingly disparate threesome from Havre, Mont.; Beaverlodge, Alberta; and Alta Loma, Calif. But the new staff had a daisy-chain association at Oregon State that extended from 1991 to 2005.

The connection started with Wagner’s tenure as an assistant with the Beavers from 1991 to 1998. Wagner recruited Schmidt out of Beaverlodge to OSU and coached her as a freshman in 1998 in what would be his final season in Corvallis.

Schmidt was a senior in 2001 when Lawrence, from Alta Loma, was an impressionable first-year freshman.

“Gina was the bee’s knees in my mind when I was a player,” Lawrence said Wednesday morning on her first day in Missoula. “She was everything I wanted to be.

“For me, that personal connection was huge (when I was considering this job). In the past I’ve worked with coaches I didn’t really know (prior to working with them), so to have the opportunity to work for people that I knew and knew were creating something really great ... everything just kind of fell into place.”

Lawrence joins a Montana program that is on the rise within the Big Sky Conference. After missing the league’s postseason tournament five straight years, Wagner has taken the Grizzlies to three tournaments in his first four seasons on the job.

Last year’s 10-6 Big Sky record marked the most league wins by Montana since the 1994 season.

“Jerry has done an amazing job changing the direction of the program from what he inherited,” Lawrence said. “He’s got it on track to be the best of the best. I sensed the momentum in (Jerry’s and Gina’s) voices when they talked about their vision for the program.

“You want to be a part of a program like that.”

Lawrence, a 2005 graduate of Oregon State, spent one season at Trinity. She and head coach Julie Jenkins, who won her 700th career match in 2009, led the Tigers to a 30-win season last fall and a spot in the NCAA Division III national quarterfinals.

“At Trinity I learned how important it is to create a culture over time,” Lawrence said about her time at the school. “They didn’t just have a winning mentality. It was also one of loyalty and pride. (Coach Jenkins) exuded this confidence in the girls and how she related with them in a way I hadn’t seen a head coach have.

“She has had so much success for so long that the girls didn’t want to disappoint her. They went 100 percent for her all the time. It was inspiring to be around.”

Because of that experience, Lawrence six months ago would have predicted a career spent at the NCAA Division III level, where athletics are viewed as just a small part of the overall student-athlete experience.

Instead, eight months after the Tigers fell to eventual national runner-up Juniata in the national quarterfinals at University Heights, Ohio, Lawrence finds herself back at the Division I level.

“I loved working at Trinity because the girls were so academically oriented,” Lawrence, who earned multiple Pac-10 academic honors herself, said. “The girls were so driven in the classroom that it was providing a model for the rest of their lives. Volleyball was important, but it took a backseat to their academics and their life goals. I thought that was really admirable.

“At the same time I did miss (the Division I) level and the collegiate experience I had of highly competitive athletics and dedication to the sport.

“I didn’t anticipate taking this step, but when it came up, I knew it was the right decision for me.”

Lawrence got her start in coaching when she was still playing at Oregon State. She coached the No Dinx Volleyball Club’s 14 and 15 teams as a Beaver upperclassman.

“Coaching those teams was a little bit of a career test for me,” she said. “I enjoyed working our camps, but I didn’t know how much I would like coaching and if I would like being in the gym right after being in the gym for my own practices. But I loved it.

“I loved mentoring the girls and being around the sport in a different way. It made me realize I wanted to stay in the sport longer than just my years of college eligibility.”

Lawrence, who earned a master’s degree from Claremont in 2008, was a volunteer assistant coach at Oregon State in 2005 and an assistant coach at Pomona-Pitzer in 2007 and La Verne in 2008, both NCAA Division III schools in southern California.

She also gained extensive coaching experience at the club level in California. She was an assistant coach on the Club West 16 Elite team that placed fifth in the open division at the 2009 USA Volleyball Junior Olympic national tournament.

Lawrence prepped at Rancho Valley (Calif.) High before becoming a four-year starter at outside hitter for Oregon State.

Lawrence was a freshman on OSU’s NCAA tournament team in 2001 and would go on to become an honorable mention All-Pac-10 selection as a junior and senior.

Also an academic standout, Lawrence earned Pac-10 academic honors in 2002, ’03 and ’04 and was a CoSIDA Academic All-District selection as a junior.

Lawrence had her best statistical season as a junior in 2003, finishing with 425 kills, 388 digs and 47 service aces. All three totals continue to rank in the top 10 on the program’s single-season record lists.

Schmidt and Lawrence are two of the top outside hitters in Beaver volleyball history. Schmidt ranks fourth in Oregon State history in career kills (1,366) and seventh in digs (1,142). Lawrence ranks sixth in kills (1,255) and 12th in digs (965).

“I’m extremely excited to add Allison to the coaching staff,” Wagner, who is entering his fifth season with the Grizzlies, said. “When we learned we were going to be pursuing a new assistant, Coach Schmidt and I got together and we both came up with the same name.

“There was a model of the ideal coach we were looking to add, and we nailed it by getting Allison.

“She was a very decorated player at Oregon State, where she was a captain and team leader. She has played and coached in the club ranks, and she has coached collegiately.

“Plus she has a master’s degree, which means she’ll be a great example for steering the young women in our program in the right direction.”

Kelly had a history with Wagner that dated back more than a decade. Wagner was an assistant coach at Montana State when he recruited Kelly’s older sister, Kamber, to play for the Bobcats. Kelly would join her sister at MSU and play for then associate head coach Wagner in 2003 and ’04.

Kelly joined Wagner at Montana in 2007 following her playing career at MSU. She was part of Griz teams that advanced to the 2008 and ’09 Big Sky Conference tournaments.

“Kandice did a fabulous job helping this program move forward in her time here,” Wagner said. “Montana did well to provide her the tools with her degree, and she plans to embark on a future in business.”

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