Nikki Doyle our very own varsity volleyball coach for 5 years was inducted to her almamater’s hall of fame for her outstanding performance in volleyball. She was PV’s kill leader for three years on the varsity team. Doyle was part of the first class to attend Pioneer Valley High School all four years and graduate. She made the first varsity volleyball team that PV had. Her three years on varsity she lead the team to CIF two years in a row. She was a strong athlete coming into her junior year and verbally committed to UCSB and once she graduated she went to go play for the Gauchos her freshman year of college due to some unforeseen circumstances she decided to start fresh and she was recruited to a college in Tennessee by an old club coach. From 2009-2012 she played at Austin Peay once again leading her team in kills. She was the first player at Austin Peay to have three consecutive 400+ kill seasons. Doyle not only lead her Highschool team to CIF but she also lead the team she coached to CIF this was the first time PV girls varsity volleyball team to go to CIF in 11 years and the last team that went to CIF was her senior year team. Nikki Doyle is the reason why PVHS Girls Volleyball was so competitive and she helped make another very strong team that made school history.

Q: How were you inducted in the  Hall of fame for Austin Peay?

A: “they vote on it; there is a panel that brings up nominations. It was awesome that I was placed in the hall of fame because I only played at Austin Peay for three years. It was kind of cool getting into the hall of fame even though I wasn’t playing there for all four years. I’m not sure of the process of the board picking each person inducted into the hall of fame but I do know not everyone gets it so it was pretty humbling to get that award.

Q: What was your college experience like?

A: ” I verbally committed to UCSB as a sophomore and then as a junior I signed to go there but I wasn’t meshing with the coach so I ended up quitting volleyball and I was just going to either comeback and do Hancock because we couldn’t afford to go to USCB with out the volleyball scholarship. Then the assistant coach at Cal Poly got his first head coaching job at Austin Peay and I’ve known him since I was in Jr. high through high school from club volleyball so he found out that I stopped playing and he didn’t want me to stop so he told me to come look at Austin Peay and I went to go visit and I feel in love with the school. After my first year at Austin pay I had to red Shirt because of my torn Labrum and after that year he ended up moving on to another college and I got a new coach which happened to be the assistant coach from last season. The season with the new coach was a good run, that’s when we went to the NCAA tournament but then the head coach wanted to start a family so she quit. So there was a new coach that came we weren’t a fan of him he was not the best coach so he ended up leaving and then I got my fifth and final coach of my college carrier. With coach Mont we went to the Ohio Valley conference but we didn’t go to the NCAA tournament. So I had five different coaches in the four years of playing college sports. Its been a journey I learned a lot because I had so many different coaches. It was frustrating  because I had to change the way I played to the way they wanted the team ran but I learned a lot not just about volleyball but also with coaching I learned what I wanted to be as a coach and what I didn’t want as coach. It was a curse and a blessing having five different coaches.

To read more on Doyle: https://letsgopeay.com/news/2018/12/12/womens-volleyball-2019-athletics-hall-of-fame-biography-nikki-doyle.aspx