Holly Aprile Leaves Pittsburgh To Become New Louisville Head Coach
After 15 years at Pittsburgh, the last ten as Head Coach, Holly Aprile is changing addresses although staying in the ACC Conference. Aprile was named as the new Head Coach at Louisville this week.
Aprile becomes only the second coach in the program’s history after coach Sandy Pearsall retired after 18 seasons.
Aprile has spent the past 15 seasons at Pittsburgh, ten as Head Coach and five as an assistant. In the 2018 season, Aprile guided the Panthers to a 33-18-1 overall record and notched a 2018 ACC Coastal Division title, and a runner-up finish in the conference tournament. Aprile was honored as the 2018 ACC Coach of the Year.
“I am absolutely thrilled to be here,” said Aprile in Louisville press release. “The first time I stepped foot on this campus, this was a place where I knew I wanted to be. This is a destination job for me; it is a dream school for me. I want to thank Vince [Tyra] and Amy [Calabrese] for all of their help through the process and their support. I think some of the key reasons that I am just so excited to be here are a tremendous support, the resources, the staff, the wonderful facilities – everything here, to me, says ‘winning.’ I am so excited to be a part of this. I think that there is such a strong winning tradition here that I am going to work to build off of. There are tremendous student-athletes that I am so excited to meet. Meeting the team and getting to know them is priority number one and recruiting is right behind that.”
Aprile pitched at UMass and reached the Women’s College World Series in 1992. She started coaching as a graduate assistant at Eastern Illinois University in 1993 and was an assistant coach at South Carolina from 1995-2004. From 2004-08, she was an assistant at Pitt before taking over in 2009.
Aprile was officially introduced to the Louisville media on Wednesday.
