Women’s Soccer Assistant Shannon DeNinno Hired by Aurora as Head Coach

(PITTSBURGH, Pa.) – After serving six years as the Carnegie Mellon University Women's Soccer Assistant Coach, Shannon DeNinno has been named the head coach at Aurora University. DeNinno will begin her first head coaching stint in February on the Aurora, Illinois, campus.

DeNinno arrived in Pittsburgh in February 2012 and immediately made an impact on the Tartans women's soccer program. The Tartans earned bids to the NCAA Championship in all six of DeNinno's years on staff and kicked off the string of appearances with a run to the Elite Eight in 2012. Four of the six trips to the NCAA Tournament for the Tartans witnessed the team advance past the first weekend of games.

Not only did DeNinno help guide the Tartans to their first-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament in 2012, she mentored the team to back-to-back University Athletic Association (UAA) Championships, the only two in program history.

The Tartans amassed a record of 82-19-12 and spent part of, if not all of, each season nationally ranked during DeNinno's time on staff.

DeNinno also served as a staff liaison for the Student-Athlete Advisory Council. She was instrumental in developing the program's leadership structure as well as leading programming efforts like the Tartan Olympics and SAAC Field Day.

DeNinno came to Carnegie Mellon after spending the 2010 season as an assistant at the University of Montevallo, a Division II school located in Montevallo, Alabama.  Prior to her arrival at Montevallo, she spent a season as the women's assistant at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, where she helped guide the Bears to a #8 national ranking and a 19-2-2 overall record. That same year, Lenoir-Rhyne won the South Atlantic Championship, as DeNinno helped coach two All-Americans, the conference player of the year and freshman of the year.

DeNinno is a 2009 graduate of the University of Tampa with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications and a minor in graphic design. She earned her master's degree from Lenoir-Rhyne University in May of 2011 in business administration.

As a player, DeNinno spent three seasons at the University of Tampa, where she won a Division II National Championship in 2007. At Tampa, she was part of a team that compiled a record of 52-7-6 in three seasons and appeared in 41 games. During her time at Tampa, DeNinno was a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and served as the SAAC President her final year.

DeNinno finished her collegiate eligibility at Lenoir-Rhyne, where she was the team's third-leading scorer with six goals and seven assists. DeNinno was also a four-year member of the IMG W-League semi-pro team from 2004-07 and spent one season with the WPSL Clearwater Galactics semi-pro team in 2009 and served as team captain.

Besides coaching at Lenoir-Rhyne and Montevallo, DeNinno also served as the Olympic Development Program Girls '95 assistant coach in North Carolina. Her team advanced to the 2011 Final Four in Arizona.

DeNinno completed the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) Advanced National Diploma during the summer of 2017 after receiving the NSCAA National Diploma for completing the course in San Francisco, California, in 2014. She also holds a NSCAA Advanced Regional Diploma (2009) and participated in the NCAA Women's Coaches Academy in 2013.