Savannah Rennie enters her first year as assistant coach for the Golden Bears in 2023.
In 2023, Rennie helped coach the Bears to their first winning record since 2019, finishing the year at 16-15 (5-15 Pac-12) with an undefeated 11-0 nonconference record. She played a large role in crafting Cal’s defensive strategy, which allowed the Bears to hold opponents to the fourth-lowest collective hitting percentage in the Pac-12. Under her guidance, three players earned their first career All-Pac-12 awards, with Tara DeSa and Annalea Maeder earning Honorable Mention Status and Maggie Li winning both Freshman of the Year and First Team honors. Li later became the AVCA Pacific West Region Freshman of the Year and was named All-Pacific West Region Honorable Mention, the only freshman to do so. DeSa led the conference in both digs and digs per set, surpassing 500 on the season for the fourth-most in program history, while Maeder turned heads with her first career 1,000-assist season and 46 service aces, the latter of which tied for 10th in the program record book.
Rennie spent the 2022 season as a volunteer assistant coach for the USC Trojans, who reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament. During Rennie’s time on the coaching staff, the Trojans’ Skylar Fields received First Team All-American honors, while teammate Mia Tuaniga earned All-American Honorable Mention status.
In her final two years of collegiate competition, Rennie played for the Marquette Golden Eagles while earning a master’s degree in corporate communications, accumulating two All-Big East honors (2020, 2021) and a 2020 All-Region nod from the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA). She was also named to the 2020 All-Big East Championship Team and the 2021 All-Big East Preseason Team.
Rennie spent five seasons as a player on the California Golden Bears while majoring in media studies. She rose to national prominence following battles with congenital hepatic fibrosis with portal hypertension (which required her to undergo a liver transplant in 2016) and non-Hodgkin post-transplant lymphoma. In Rennie’s senior season in 2019, she earned Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week (Sept. 2) honors as well as the Tournament MVP title at the CSU Rams Volleyball Classic; later, she tore her ACL but continued to take the court for the Bears.
As a high school player, Rennie was PrepVolleyball.com’s No. 20 Senior Ace in the class of 2015, as well as an Under Armour Third Team All-American, a PrepVolleyball.com All-American and a U.S. Youth National Team member. The previous year, she earned the San Diego Section Player of the Year award.
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