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Drury University

Drury University Athletics
 900 North Benton Avenue Springfield, MO 65802
Division 2 Missouri Midwest
Private Small National competitor
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Coaches

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Justin Olson

Justin Olson will enter his fourth season as the head coach of the Drury women’s soccer program in 2023. In his short time with the Panthers, he has orchestrated one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the history of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.


Olson is 27-14-12 in three seasons at Drury and has posted an 18-11-11 record in the GLVC. The program had won just three games in the previous two seasons before Olson’s arrival and went winless in 2018.


He led Drury to a GLVC Championship in 2021 and the program’s first NCAA-II Tournament bid since 2007 as the Panthers went 16-5-1, 10-3-1 in the league, and to the second round of the national tournament.


Olson was named the GLVC Coach of the Year in 2021, and he and assistant Melissa Kuhar were honored as the NCAA-II Midwest Region Coaching Staff of the Year as well.


11 of his players in the last three years have been named to the All-GLVC team along with two All-Midwest Region selections. The program has also produced the GLVC Offensive Player of the Year in 2021 with Elsa Gonzalez, and the league Freshman of the Year, Tara Simon, the same season.


Olson started his tenure with the Panthers on Jan. 10, 2020, and his first year leading the program was shifted to the spring of 2021 after the coronavirus pandemic pushed fall sports to the second semester.


While Olson will enter his fourth year as head coach at Drury in 2023, it will be his 11th season as a collegiate head coach. Before arriving in Springfield, he served as the head coach at Bethany College in Kansas for three years. He led the NAIA program to winning seasons in two of his three seasons there, and in 2018, he guided the team to their most wins in school history, finishing 12-6-2. Olson became the first coach in program history to win 26 games within three seasons and went 27-24-4 in three years at Bethany.


In 2019, Olson had eight players named all-conference in the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Association, and his squad also produced the league's Freshman of the Year, forward Julianna Lopez. His team also set program records in 2018 in goals allowed with 13 and shutouts with 10.


Olson served as head coach at Saint Joseph's in 2016 during the school's final year of operation and was the head coach at Calumet College of St. Joseph's in the NAIA from 2013 to 2015. In 2013, he guided Calumet to their best record in program history as the squad picked up six wins.


In addition to numerous all-conference accolades, his teams have also been successful in the classroom. Olson saw his Bethany team improve from a 2.9 grade point average to a 3.4 GPA during his tenure. His Saint Joseph's squad had a 3.6 team GPA, the second-best mark among teams at the institution that year.


Olson also spent four years as the head coach for the men's soccer team at Calumet from 2012 to 2015 and was the program's assistant coach from 2009 to 2012. He also served as the head coach for NWI United and Three Lions United in northwest Indiana from 2012 to 2017 at the club level. He's also been a staff coach for Northwestern University's Girls Academy since 2016.


Olson played collegiate soccer at Southern Indiana from 2005 to 2008 and graduated from USI with a degree in Communications in 2008.


Originally from Portage, Indiana, Olson and his wife, Taryn, reside in southwest Missouri.

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Melissa Kuhar

Melissa Kuhar will start her fourth season as the assistant coach for the Drury women’s soccer program in 2023.


She and head coach Justin Olson were named the Midwest Region Coaching Staff of the Year in 2021 after leading the Panthers to a 16-5-1 season, a 10-3-1 record in the GLVC, and to the second round of the NCAA-II Tournament. It marked the first national appearance for the program since 2007.


The Panthers have gone 27-14-12 since her arrival and have produced 11 All-GLVC selections, two All-Midwest Region players, the GLVC Offensive Player of the Year (Elsa Gonzalez, 2022), and the GLVC Freshman of the Year (Tara Simon, 2022).


In addition to her work at Drury, Kuhar is also the head girls' soccer coach at Greenwood High School in Springfield. She guided the Blue Jays to the state semifinals, a third place finish in Class 1, and a 16-4 record in her first season at Greenwood.


Kuhar joined the Panthers coaching staff after serving three years as an assistant at Bethany College in Kansas with head coach Justin Olson. She helped the NAIA program to winning seasons in two of the three seasons there, and in 2018, the team posted the most wins in school history, finishing 12-6-2. The Swedes went 27-24-4 in her three years at Bethany.


While at Bethany, Kuhar also worked as a sports information assistant and was an adjunct professor teaching classes in the Exercise Science department.


Kuhar was also an assistant girls' soccer coach at Salina High School in Kansas in 2019-20, and was an assistant at Saint Joseph High School in South Bend, Indiana, and helped the team reach the Indiana 3A state semifinals.


She played collegiate soccer for St. Joseph’s (Ind.) from 2014-16 and graduated with a degree in Sport Management. Kuhar also owns a Master’s degree in Sports Administration from the American Public University System.

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