The 2023 season is Allison Lawrence’s seventh as head coach and 14th overall with the Montana volleyball program. She was elevated to head coach in January 2017 after serving the previous seven seasons as an assistant.

Lawrence has led the Grizzly volleyball program to heights not seen since the turn of the century in Missoula, bringing Montana from the bottom of the Big Sky Conference to a league contender in her time in charge. The Grizzlies have finished above their preseason prediction in five of the past six seasons, including 2022, when Montana earned its most wins and best winning percentage since 1999.

The 2022 season led to Lawrence being named the Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year, just the second time in program history that a Grizzly coach has won the award and the first since 1991.

Lawrence took over a program that had won just five matches prior to her promotion, but she has guided the Grizzlies to four of the past five Big Sky Conference Tournaments, something that hadn’t been done in Missoula since the mid-2000s. During that time, Lawrence has also developed a trio of one-time All-Big Sky selections in Mykaela Hammer (2018 first team), Missy Huddleston (2019 second team), and Carly Anderson (2022 second team), as well as two-time All-Big Sky performer Paige Clark (2021 second team, 2022 first team).

At the time she took over as head coach, Montana ranked last or second-to-last in the Big Sky in every statistical category. The Grizzlies have since risen by at least three spots in each category, and have increased their assists, kills, blocks and digs by roughly 100 spots apiece in the national rankings.

The 2022 season was one for the record book on many levels. Montana not only had its most overall wins and best winning percentage, but the Grizzlies also finished with double-digit conference wins for the first time in a decade. Lawrence led them to the best Big Sky winning percentage (.625) since 2009 and the highest conference finish (t-4th) since 2010. Montana also strung together a five-game winning streak, the longest since 2006.

Montana swept rival Montana State for the first time since 2013 to maintain the Main Line Trophy as well, playing in front of a crowd of 2,100 fans that broke the previous program record that had held for 31 years.

The Grizzlies also swept the Idaho-Eastern Washington road trip for the first time in program history, putting together a highly successful year against its regional rivals. They were two of seven road wins on the season for Montana, the most away from home since 2013.

The 2022 season started off well and continued throughout the year. The Grizzlies won seven non-conference matches and finished with a .583 non-conference winning percentage, the best marks in both categories since the 2005 season. Ellie Scherffius was named to the All-Tournament team in all four of Montana's non-conference weekends.

A major proponent of involving the team with the community, Lawrence and the Grizzlies spoiled home fans to seven home wins in 2022, the most by the program since 2010. Lawrence’s team ranked in the upper half of the league in most statistical categories, including a third-place rank in kills, assists, and aces.

There were some historic performances on the individual level in 2022 as well. Sarina Moreno completed her career under Lawrence’s guidance with the most digs in program history (1,885) while Carly Anderson has climbed up to eighth in career assists with 2,618.
 
Ellie Scherffius also hit .304 for the season, the fifth-best mark in Grizzly program history.

Following an abbreviated Spring 2021 season due to COVID-19, Montana saw great growth during the fall 2021 season. After being picked to finish last in the preseason coaches’ poll, Montana finished closer to fourth than it did last, earning a trip back to the Big Sky tournament for the third consecutive fall season. Montana’s 11 victories in 2021 were more than it posted in the previous two seasons combined, as the Grizzlies achieved their most wins and best winning percentage since 2013.

The success started early, as Montana earned its first .500 non-conference record in 16 seasons and went 3-0 at the UND Classic in mid-September to earn the program’s first outright tournament title since 2005. The weekend featured a win over Green Bay, a come-from-behind victory over Drake and a sweep over host North Dakota.

After beginning Big Sky play 1-6, the season started to turn around once Clark, a freshman, transitioned from backup setter to outside hitter. From that point forward, she became the league’s second-best attacker as Montana went 5-2 over a seven-match stretch, tied for the league’s best record during that four-week span. The period included road wins at Idaho (sweep), Southern Utah (sweep) and Montana State, as the Grizzlies claimed their second consecutive Brawl of the Wild win in Bozeman, and the Main Line Trophy for the first time.

Montana also earned home wins over Sacramento State, Eastern Washington and Idaho in 2021. The win over Sacramento State was the Hornets’ only set loss in a three-week span, while the Grizzlies held Eastern Washington to .000 hitting, the lowest by a Griz opponent since 1992. Montana swept the season series over Idaho for the first time since 1991. Montana improved its ranking in every statistical category from spring to fall and hit .202 as a team, just outside the school’s single-season top-10 list.

In addition to turning around a program, Lawrence has also been tasked with rebuilding a roster. The Grizzlies started at least three freshmen in every match in both 2019 and Spring 2021. During that two-year stretch, more than 50 percent of the team’s starts came from freshmen, totaling 149 starts.

After developing eight freshmen and playing without its starting setter through the first eight matches of the 2019 season, Montana turned its season around in late October, posting a winning record over the back-half of Big Sky play to qualify for the league tournament for the second year in a row. Along the way, Montana earned road wins at Montana State (its first in Bozeman since 2015), Idaho (its first in Moscow since 1991) and Idaho State (on the final night of the regular season to earn a postseason berth). The win over the Vandals was not only the program’s first in 28 years, but also marked the first time all season that Idaho lost on its home court. Montana then played eventual champion Northern Colorado in the quarterfinals of the Big Sky tournament, taking a set off of the Bears.

Coinciding with Montana’s turnaround was Huddleston’s move from the right side to the middle blocker position. Over the final month of the season, the senior averaged 3.10 kills per set on .276 hitting while leading the league with 1.15 blocks per set. She was twice named the Big Sky Conference Player of the Week during that span. The 2019 season also saw the emergence of several freshmen, a group that started more than 100 combined matches for the Grizzlies.

The 2018 season was a breakthrough in many ways. In addition to qualifying for the conference tournament, Montana posted its most wins, most Big Sky victories and most home wins since 2013. The Grizzlies won seven conference matches after winning just five in the previous two seasons combined. On the road, Montana had four true road wins, after posting just one each in 2016 and 2017.

The Grizzlies had their best start to Big Sky play since 2006, picking up consecutive wins over Sacramento State, Portland State and Montana State. The Brawl of the Wild victory came in front of 1,314 fans, the program's ninth-largest crowd ever and largest since 2009. As a whole, Montana averaged more than 500 fans per match in 2018, its largest attendance average since 1995.

During the preseason, Montana hosted a home tournament featuring a pair of top-30 national teams (No. 22 Utah of the Pac-12 and Iowa State (receiving top-25 votes) of the Big 12). The weekend concluded with a come-from-behind win over regional rival Gonzaga. After winning the first two sets, Montana faced a fifth-set match point at 14-13, before winning four of the next five points to complete the victory.

During 2018, Montana also picked up Big Sky wins at Southern Utah and at Idaho State, in addition to a season sweep over Eastern Washington, hitting above .325 in both matches. In addition to non-conference wins over Gonzaga and UTEP, Montana also beat South Dakota, a team that qualified for the NCAA tournament that fall.

Montana went 8-21 in 2017, Lawrence’s first year as head coach. It was a three-win improvement from the previous season and matched the most wins for the program since 2013.

While the Grizzlies have seen growth on the court, Lawrence is most proud of what she is building off of it, with plenty of focus on developing the team's culture and cohesion. The team spends countless hours in the community on an annual basis, including regular visits to Rattlesnake Elementary School. In the classroom, Montana posted its highest grade-point average in five years during the 2020-21 academic year, despite classes being a hybrid of in-person and remote due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The team recorded a cumulative GPA of 3.63, second-highest in the athletics department, with eight players being honored on the dean’s list and the team earning the AVCA Team Academic Award.

Griz players have garnered 81 Academic All-Big Sky honors with Lawrence on staff, including a program-record 20 over the past two seasons (program-best 10 in both 2020-21 and 2021-22).

Away from the court, the Grizzlies also had several meetings and educational forums about racial and social injustices following the summer of 2020, with one activity resulting in 100-percent voter registration and participation. Lawrence was selected by her peers to the inaugural Athletics Diversity & Inclusion Committee in August 2020, a group that she now spearheads.

In Lawrence’s seven seasons as an assistant, Montana three times finished .500 or better in Big Sky matches and three times made the league’s postseason tournament. At the 2013 Big Sky tournament, No. 5 Montana defeated No. 4 Northern Arizona in the quarterfinals, the Grizzlies’ first postseason victory since 1996.

Since Lawrence has been on staff, Jaimie Thibeault earned first-team All-Big Sky honors in 2010, Kayla Reno in 2013, Hannah Sackett in 2015, Hammer in 2018 and Clark in 2022. The Grizzlies also have had six second-team selections during that time.

Lawrence joined the Grizzlies in the summer of 2010 after one season as an assistant coach at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She helped lead the Tigers to a 30-win season and a spot in the 2009 NCAA Division III national quarterfinals.

Lawrence was an assistant coach at La Verne in 2008 and Pomona-Pitzer in 2007 – both NCAA Division III schools in southern California – and served as a volunteer assistant coach at Oregon State in 2005.

Lawrence, from Alta Loma, California, was a four-year starting outside hitter for Oregon State from 2001 to 2004. She graduated from OSU in 2005 with a degree in philosophy and added a master’s degree in applied women’s studies from Claremont Graduate University in 2008. Lawrence was a freshman on Oregon State’s 2021 NCAA tournament team and would go on to earn honorable-mention All-Pac-10 honors as a junior and senior. She was awarded Pac-10 academic honors in 2002, 2003 and 2004, and was an academic all-district selection as a junior.

One of the top outside hitters in Beavers history, Lawrence finished her career ranked fifth in OSU history for kills, seventh for digs and 10th for service aces.

She is married to Nate Michael. They are the parents of two sons, Wyatt and Carson.