Giovana Melo just completed her fourth season as head coach of the WNCC volleyball program and she has done nothing but win, win, win. The volleyball team, once again, finished in the top three at the national tournament for the seventh year in a row. The Cougars also won the national title in 2010, there second in five seasons.

When Melo took over the program in the summer of 2008, she inherited a team that brought home the college's first national championship in November 2007. And, any thought of decline was shortly extinguished as she continued the success of the program that Chris Green established.

In her four seasons at WNCC, Melo has a 185-14 coaching record. Melo has guided the Cougars to a top three finish every season that she has been coach, including a national championship in 2010. She also was named a West Region AVCA two times and was also picked as one of the top coaches in the AVCA's 30 Under 30 top coaches for three seasons.

Melo, who grew up in Brazil, started her collegiate volleyball career at WNCC in from 2001-20023 under former coach Chris Green. In her two seasons at WNCC, Melo earned second team NJCAA All-American honors her freshman year and first team all-American honors her sophomore year. She helped guide the Cougars to a 104-14 record in two seasons, including a third place finish at nationals in 2003.

After WNCC, Melo went on to play Division I volleyball at Arizona State University, where she played two seasons, before tearing her ACL in her senior season for the Sun Devils and had to use a red-shirt season. She earned PAC-10 Academic honors in 2005.

Melo's success as a head coach is easy to spot after seeing the number of players that she has sent on to the four-year level, including Fatima Balze, who won two national champions for Penn State. Also, Kuulei Kabalis went on to Kansas State where she led her team into the second round of the national tournament this past fall.

Fatima Balza returns to WNCC as an assistant coach. Balza played for the Cougars in 2007 and 2008 where she helped the volleyball team capture its first national championship. After graduating from WNCC in May 2009, Balza went on to star at Penn State where she won two NCAA national championships. She is asked many times where her rings are and she has to get them out and show people her three national championship rings.

Balza came to WNCC from Venezuela where she earned all-American honors at WNCC. She graduated from Penn State in 2011 and came to WNCC as an assistant coach last fall, helping the team to a third place finish at the national tournament. Balza is currently pursuing her Masters degree through Chadron State College.