WILLIMANTIC, Conn. - A veteran of 13 seasons of coaching men's and women's volleyball on the intercollegiate level, Peter Viteritti has been named the fifth permanent head coach in the 34-year history of the Eastern Connecticut State University women's intercollegiate volleyball program, it has been announced by Director of Athletics Joyce S. Wong.

A native of Nashua, N.H. and recent resident of Beverly, Mass., Viteritti has been named in a part-time capacity and will officially begin his appointment August 1. He replaces Jolie Ward, who compiled a five-year record of 104-83 in a fulltime capacity and led the Warriors to the last three Little East Conference playoff championships. Ward was recently named head coach at Manhattan College.

Prior to his appointment at Eastern, Viteritti coached women's and men's volleyball at Division II East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania between 2002 and 2005 after serving as head women's coach at the College of the Holy Cross between 1997 and 2001. Viteritti began his collegiate coaching career at Northeastern University, where he served as chief recruiter under head coach Ernest Tche in 1996.

"We are fortunate to be able to hire a volleyball coach who has the experience that Peter brings to Eastern," said Wong. "I am confident that we will see our program continue its progress toward becoming a national competitor on a regular basis."

At East Stroudsburg, Viteritti compiled a four-year record of 54-70 with the women's program between 2002 and 2005 and a three-year record of 25-40 with the men between 2003 and 2005. He had only one losing season with the women's program at ESU, with his 2004 team reaching the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) tournament semifinals. Two of his four teams placed third in the regular season in the PSAC East Division. Eight of his players were named PSAC all-stars and one was twice named to the all-region team.

Viteritti inherited a winless (0-23) team as a 24-year-old Division I head coach at Holy Cross in 1997 and won a combined total of 23 matches in his final two seasons with the Crusaders. In five seasons between 1997 and 2001, Viteritti won  33 and lost 102 with the non-scholarship program. 

Having initially met with Eastern's three seniors, Viteritti came away feeling that "there is a good team chemistry, and that is what I like. I have the feeling that there was a lot of togetherness (last year). There is already structure and leadership there. I think that this team is poised to win another conference championship, and I put that (responsibility) solely on my shoulders. There are a bunch of good athletes here that probably play good defense, and that's something that I am going to focus on."

Viteritti feels that balance, teamwork and hustle have characterized his previous teams.

"What I like to see with my programs is that everybody is doing the same thing; we don't have too many standing out," said Viteritti. "When you see one of my teams, you don't see a bunch of players, you see one team. We play good team defense, we have very good ball control, there is a lot of communication, and we hustle.  I am going to take it personally if we don't out-hustle a team that we are playing. Regardless of whether we win or lose, we have to out-hustle the other team. That is expected."

In five seasons under Ward (104-83), Eastern averaged 21 wins per season. The Warriors have won the last three LEC tournament championships. After winning or sharing regular-season titles in 2005 and 2006, Eastern shared fourth place last year but rallied to defeat three higher seeds on the road to claim its third straight tournament crown.

Eastern lost only one season from last year's11-26 team. Among the team's returning three seniors is second-team all-conference outside hitter Sandra Jaques (Milford).  Eastern opens its 34^th intercollegiate season Sept. 2 against visiting Roger Williams University.

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