Kat Niksto
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- Title:
- Head Coach
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- Phone:
- 805-965-0581 Ext 2462
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- Email:
- khniksto@pipeline.sbcc.edu
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- Year:
- 5th Year
Coach Niksto will begin her fifth year at SBCC in 2023.
In just her second full season with the program, Niksto led the Vaqueros to one of its best records ever, going 23-5 overall and tying for first in the WSC-North with an 8-2 mark. SBCC hosted a pair of SoCal Regional playoff matches, falling in the second round. A year later in 2023, the Vaqueros took on a very challenging schedule while being hamstrung by COVID DNPs for much of the first month of the season. They fought back to finish 16-11 overall and 7-3 in conference play, advancing all the way to the SoCal Finals where they fell just short in a five-set thriller at Orange Coast.
She spent 10 years as a club coach and executive for the Santa Barbara Volleyball Club and has been an assistant coach for the Laguna Blanca boys and girls teams for the last six years. The Owls' girls team won a CIF title in 2015.
In 2018, she coached UCSB's women's club team to a ninth-place national finish.
She's lived in Santa Barbara for most of her life, playing volleyball at Dos Pueblos High and enjoying a stellar career as an outside hitter at Pomona-Pitzer, where she was two-time All-Conference and All-Western Region. She was Pomona-Pitzer's female Athlete of the Year in her senior season.
Niksto earned a double BA in Psychology and Art from Pomona-Pitzer, then coached NCAA Division 1 volleyball at Temple University as the graduate assistant/director of operations for three years while getting her Master's of Education in Sports and Recreation Administration.
"I like the team aspect of volleyball," Niksto stated. "A balanced team working together, can overcome a team with just one superstar player. I pride myself on coaching strong teams that work together, and play hard for each other."
Niksto and her husband Jake have two sons, EJ and Quincy.
