CINCINNATI, Ohio - Mount St. Joseph has a new men's volleyball coach as Eric Santiago Garcia has been appointed by Director of Athletics Melanee Wagener. 

Coach Santiago Garcia comes to the Mount after a standout playing career at Trine University where was he played both outside hitter and libero. During his time at Trine he competed as in the same conference the Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League as the Lions. 

Since graduating from Trine, Eric has jumped straight into the coaching world. His first job was an assistant coach at Indiana institute of Technology where he helped to develop practice plans, served as the teams defensive coordinator, aided in the recruiting process and was even named the interim coach late in the spring of 2023. He also served as the advisor and head coach for the Indiana Tech Men's Beach team, earning a bid to the AVCA Fall Collegiate Beach Championship. 

He has also served as a varsity assistant coach at Heritage High School for two years, helping the team to a 29-3 and a 2022 ACAC Conference Champions. He has been active with USA Volleyball as the Head Coach of the u19 Hoosier Region Boys team at the 2023 Volleyball All-Star Championship in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

"Very excited to be joining a program with such a history of success." Said coach Santiago. "We are looking forward to the challenge of bringing this program back to that level it previously was at". He went on to add"Id like to thank coach Will Dowdy and Kyle Shandell for helping me along my journey and helping to prepare me for the challenge of running my own program." 

"We are excited to announce the hiring of coach Eric Santiago Garcia" Said Melanee Wagener. "We were impressed with Eric's technical knowledge and implementation plans for the team moving forward! He will bring a ton of energy to the program and has a lot of experience with our league having played at Trine!"