Sarah Strickland enters her eighth season at the helm of the Appalachian State University women’s soccer program. To date – she has amassed over 18 years of coaching experience at the club, collegiate and national levels.
In their third year in the Sun Belt Conference, the Mountaineers used four wins in their last five matches, including three straight to finish the season and a 4-3 double overtime thriller over top-ranked South Alabama, to secure its second straight berth in the conference tournament at the No. 4 seed. Appalachian State won handily over its first-round opponents, Louisiana, before falling to No. 1 South Alabama in the semifinals.
Under Strickland’s tutelage, the team also joined 579 women’s soccer programs nationwide in earning the NSCAA 2015-16 College Team Academic Award for team GPA. To qualify, teams must have a minimum GPA of 3.0 or higher for the entire academic year.
Prior to her stint in the SEC, Strickland was a well-respected club soccer coach and administrator in Alabama for eight years. During that time, she served as the director of coaching for the Montgomery YMCA Capital City Streaks (2000-04), Girls’ Director for Coaching for the American Soccer Club (2004-06) and Staff Director for the Birmingham United Soccer Association (2006-07).
She began her coaching career on the collegiate level as an assistant coach at Troy University in 1998 and served as the program’s interim head coach during the 1999 offseason. From there, she moved on to Auburn University at Montgomery, where she was an assistant on the men’s and women’s staffs from 1999-2000.
On the national level, Strickland is a United States Soccer Federation “B” licensed coach and served on the staff of the U-14 national program in 2001. She also coached for the Alabama Olympics Development Program boys’ and girls’ programs from 1998-2002 and the Mississippi ODP girls’ in 2009.