The 2025 fall Irvine Valley women's indoor volleyball schedule has been reased and the Lasers will be playing under a new, exciting and well-respected coach.
And it is a famiiar face.
Former UC Irvine All-American and former IVC assistant coach Kari Hemmerling was recently named the director of volleyball for the Lasers.
She will be the head coach for the women's indoor and beach squads and oversee the men's program.
Hemmerling was an assistant for Irvine Valley, then known as Kari Pestolesi, for two seasons (2013 and 2015) with the indoor team before coaching the beach volleyball team at Concordia University.
She then became the head coach of the Cerritos College indoor team and and beach squad and completely turned those programs around.
Hemmerling ran the Cerritos indoor team for nine seasons and her last two (2023 and 2024) were super successful.
In 2023, the team went 13-9 and made the So. Cal Regionals and in 2024 the Falcons went 20-4, were ranked most of the season, were named co-champions of the South Coast Conference South Division, once again made the So. Cal. Regionals and earned a trip to the 3C2A State Championships.
Hemmerling also started up the beach program a few years back - first as a club team and then as a sanctioned sport. The past spring in 2025, like the indoor team in the previous fall, reached the state tournament.
The squad ended with a record of 16-10 overall.
A full story, pictures and an interview with new IVC coach Hemmerling will be posted next week.
The full IVC schedule for this fall can be viewed here
The Lasers start the season in the Cerritos scrimmage tournament on Aug. 15 and later open Orange Empire Conference play at Santiago Canyon on the road on Sept. 17 at 6 p.m.
