Head Coach | 2nd Season
Monica Plut enters her second season as head coach of Mountaineer Women’s Lacrosse in 2022. She was named the program’s first ever head coach in January 2020.
In 2021, Plut and the Mountaineers were limited to exhibition contests due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. In five exhibition contests, the Mountaineers took on a pair of NCAA Division III schools and the only other NAIA school on the West Coast at the time. The Mountaineer women picked up their first win in a 22-16 triumph over the Whitworth University Pirates back on March 5. Plut’s squad also posted above a 3.0 GPA during the winter term and had multiple athletes make the Dean’s List throughout the academic year.
Prior to joining EOU, Plut was the head coach at NCAA Division II school Adams State University in Alamosa, Colo. for one season. In her lone year with the Grizzlies, Plut also taught lacrosse to middle school and high school PE classes. She also ran a high school tournament in October 2019.
Plut started her coaching career in 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. She then moved to Lexington and became the head coach for the Woodford County Yellow Jackets in 2016. Her team was the state runner-up in the 2017 season. The next year, Plut became the head coach at Sayre School, a private school in Lexington. She led her team to the league semifinals and was ranked No. 1 in the East District.
Plut is a US Lacrosse Level 3 certified coach and also a US Lacrosse Certified Coaching Development Level 1 and Level 2 Trainer. She has presented a Level 1 training at the US Lacrosse Convention in 2017 and also taught and mentored five trainers at the 2018 convention.
She has helped grow the sport of lacrosse in the Bluegrass Region by putting on clinics, camps and starting a travel team, Brave, to compete in the Stickhead Fall League in Louisville, Kentucky. Plut was also on the Central Kentucky Lacrosse Association board as Vice President and Middle School Girls Commissioner, as well as on the Kentucky State Lacrosse Chapter as Vice President and Girls Lacrosse Ambassador.
Prior to coaching, Plut played club women's lacrosse at Georgia Southern University. She founded the club team in 2009 and was the president of the club for three years. Her Eagles team played against teams like Furman, Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Ole Miss, SCAD and more. Plut started playing lacrosse at age 11.
Plut graduated from Georgia Southern in May 2014 with a Bachelor's degree in General Studies with a concentration in Business Management and Marketing and a minor in Psychology. She received her Master's in Applied Sports Psychology at Adams State in May 2021.
Plut resides in La Grande and is engaged to William McLaughlin, EOU's Sports Information Director. The couple have two cats named Meghan and Ronald.
