 |  |
Lynnette Buffington enters her third year as head coach of the women's soccer program at Pacific Lutheran and has compiled a 10-24-5 record.
Buffington came to PLU with four years of NCAA Division III college coaching experience. From 2003-06, she served as women's soccer head coach at Villa Julie College in Baltimore, Md. In those four years she improved the winning percentage of the program from .139 to .714, as well as winning two conference championships and leading her 2006 team to the round of 32 in the NCAA Division III national tournament.
Prior to coaching at Villa Julie, Buffington was the women's soccer head coach at Tacoma Community College where she compiled a 35-5-4 overall record from 1999-2001. She led the Titans to two Southwest Division championships and three NWAACC tournament appearances, taking two of the teams to the quarterfinals and one to the semifinals.
Buffington, a Tacoma native, graduated from Tacoma's Stadium
High School in 1992 and from Gonzaga University in 1996. She
becomes the fourth coach in the program's history.
Jamie Giger brings collegiate head coaching experience to the Pacific Lutheran program, where she starts her second season as an assistant coach.
Giger served as head coach at Elmira (N.Y) College in 2007, but left there to return to her native Washington. Prior to coaching at Elmira, she coached at the college and youth levels, including spending two years as head girls coach at White River High School, her alma mater.
Giger played collegiate soccer at Portland State, where she was the team's offensive MVP and an All-Big Sky Conference selection in 2001. She earned her degree in recreation management from Central Washington University in 2006.
In addition to her coaching responsibilities, Giger runs a
personal soccer training school and is the Puget Sound area manager
for the Skyhawks soccer program.
Joe Jordan is in his second season as a Pacific Lutheran women's soccer assistant coach.
Since 2000, Jordan has coached a number of club teams in the area, including his current involvement with age group teams in the Puyallup and Federal Way areas. He has been an assistant girls soccer coach at Fife High School, helping head coach (and former PLU player and graduate) Teri Shimoda lead the team to the 2007 state championship. He has earned a USSF National C coaching license.
Jordan graduated from Pacific Lutheran in 1998 and earned a
health and fitness endorsement from Seattle Pacific University in
2007. He lives in Tacoma.
Nicole "Rusty" Veth is in her third season as an assistant coach with the PLU women's soccer team.
Veth completed a two-year Pacific Lutheran University playing career in 2006, participating in 19 matches and scoring one goal. Veth transferred to PLU from Highline CC in Des Moines where she was a starter and captain. Veth attended Olympic High School in Silverdale, where her family still resides.
She graduated from PLU with a bachelors degree in business administration. With her PLU education she plans to some day break into the restaurant industry and open a soccer-theme restaurant.
Veth is currently playing semi-pro soccer for the Tacoma Stars
and plans to work her way up the ranks of collegiate coaching while
working side jobs. She is also keeping an open mind about the
possibility of further continuing her education in graduate school.
