PC adding women’s cross country, tennis in 2018-19

Sports will begin during 2018-19 academic year

Porterville College Director of Student Programs and Athletics Joe Cascio has announced the addition of women’s cross country and women’s tennis programs that will begin competing in the 201819 academic year. The programs expand PC’S sports offerings to seven, joining women’s volleyball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball and softball at the college.

“I’m very excited to expand the athletic offerings here at Porterville College,” Cascio said. “We have been looking for ways to increase opportunities for studentathletes, and I think this is a great start.”

Cascio added that along with an increase in female students attending the college, two of the reasons why women’s tennis and cross country were chosen was because of their popularity in the area and that PC has the facilities to accommodate the programs.

“What I tried to do was look for sports that fit into this community, that fit into what we we’re doing here financially and what would impact what our student population kind of looked like,” he said. “What I noticed was that a trend...[in] the number of female students that we get on this campus has increased dramatically over the last five years. So I wanted to add sports for women because we have more female students than we have male students, it would make more sense to have more women sports than men’s.”

Hired in August of 2015, Cascio said that under him the college has ran a “fiscally conservative athletic department” and did not need additional funding to add the programs. He also noted that PC already has eight tennis

courts on campus and that the cross country team can host events at local parks and a facility is not needed for training.

Cascio has also brought back a familiar face to relaunch the women’s tennis team after the program was halted in 2005. Porterville High School and former PC head coach Kurt Nielsen returns to lead the Pirates.

“We are extremely fortunate to have a coach like Kurt Nielsen already here and established on campus,” said Cascio. “He brings a wealth of knowledge, not only of the game of tennis, but of Porterville and the surrounding area. I have every reason to believe that the program will be competitive right away.”

Previously, Nielsen coached the girl’s tennis team at Porterville High for the last 19 years. While at PHS, Nielsen captured 15 East Yosemite League team championships and coached 16 individual EYL champions. His 2009 PHS girl’s squad was also Valley champions.

Nielsen also has additional experience at the collegiate level, coaching Long Beach State University and Cal State Bakersfield. At PC, Nielsen led the men’s and women’s tennis programs from 1999-2004.

“I’m very excited about the return of tennis to our college community,” said Nielsen. “With the hopeful recruitment of our local high school players, PC is positioned to build a competitive program through the coming years. During the last 25-30 years, virtually all the local EYL league championships have come from Porterville and Monache high schools.”

While PC has landed Nielsen to lead the women’s tennis program, a search for a women’s cross country head coach is currently underway with the school actively pursuing hiring a head coach in the next few weeks.

“It’s going to be a fun challenge to find the right cross country coach,” Cascio said. “Cross country is huge in this town, so I feel like the pool of candidates is going make the decision extremely difficult. That’s a good problem to have, however.”

Cross country officially competes during the fall while tennis takes place during the spring.

For more information on either of these programs, please contact Cascio at joseph.cascio@portervillecollege.edu.