Sydney Kralj was hired as a volunteer assistant women’s volleyball coach in January 2021. Kralj comes to Dominican University after spending two years overseas as a professional player, adding to the volleyball resume she had already built on American soil.
Kralj’s most recent experience came on the Sens Olympique volleyball court in Sens, France, from 2019-20, just one year after playing a pair of seasons for VFL Oythe Club in Vechta, Germany. Kralj and VFL Oythe Club finished fourth in the Bundesliga 2 division during her time in Germany, preceding a No. 9 ranking in the French Cup standings in 2019-20 with VFL Oythe.
As a collegiate athlete, Kralj was named an AVCA All-American honorable mention in 2016 after transferring from Cal State Los Angeles to California Baptist University, in addition to be named to the Second Team All-West Region and First-Team All PacWest. Kralj was named 2016 PacWest Setter of the Year as a junior in 2016, marking the first time in school history that a CBU volleyball player was named Setter of the Year since joining the PacWest conference. That season, Kralj ranked No. 22 in the nation in assists per set (11.02), and helped give CBU the seventh-best hitting percentage (.277) in the country. The 2016 two-time PacWest Player of the Week also recorded 246 digs, 42 blocks, and 50 kills on a .359 hitting percentage that year.
Now an NCAA Division I program, Cal Baptist owned a 20-0 record in the PacWest in 2017 with Kralj, good enough to earn the No. 1 overall ranking among NCAA Division II programs. Kralj was a 3x All-West Region player, a 2x All-American and twice named the PacWest Setter of the Week.
Her coaching resume includes time spent with the Belltown Volleyball Club in 2018 in addition to coaching Core Volleyball Club camps in 2019 and 2020. Kralj earned her Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies in 2018 from California Baptist University and now resides in Castro Valley, California.
