Pueblo South brings on Carol Benedict as volleyball coach
Former Manitou Springs and Rye volleyball coach Carol Benedict has a new home. She has been hired as the head coach at Pueblo South.
Jeff Bersch of the Pueblo Chieftain first reported the hire on Monday.
She takes over for Charles Arellano and will have some work to do as the Colts went 3-20 in 2017.
“I love to coach and I missed it, so I was excited to see the opening,” Benedict said.
Pueblo South has found a lot of athletic success success in the last year. The football team claimed its first state championship in December and both the boys and girls basketball teams advanced to the final weekend of the state basketball tournament.
The boys were knocked out in the semis while the girls fell in the Class 4A state title game.
Benedict herself is no stranger to success. She advanced to the 3A state championship match in 2013 with Manitou Springs. She got the Mustangs back to the semifinals the next year.
In her one season at Rye in 2016, she led the Thunderbolts to a 18-7 record. The prospect of raising the Colts volleyball program to the height of success that the school found in 2017-18 is a challenge she is excited to take on.
“The thing I’m really excited about is talking to the athletic director (Jarrett Sweckard), we have very much the same philosophy on how a program should be run,” she said. ”
The Colts lost five seniors from last years team but also rostered four freshmen.
“They have a lot of really good athletes,” Benedict said. “And last year they had a lot of really young girls and there’s a lot of potential there.”
