May 15, 2008
Duran Named Head Women's Basketball Coach

CHESTERTOWN, MD – Washington College Athletic Director Dr. Bryan Matthews has announced the hiring of Megan Duran as the school's new head women's basketball coach. Duran's previous coaching experience includes stints at Pfeiffer University, Newbury College, and Hartwick College.

Duran comes to Washington College from Pfeiffer, a Division II institution in North Carolina, where she served as the assistant coach for the Falcons during the 2007-08 season, aiding in recruiting, scouting, conducting practices and other duties. Prior to her stay at Pfeiffer, Duran spent one year as the head women's basketball coach, sports information director, assistant athletic director, and senior woman administrator at Newbury College in Massachusetts. Duran's first collegiate coaching experience came at Hartwick College in upstate New York, where she served as an assistant coach for two seasons.

In addition to her collegiate coaching experience, Duran's resume includes time spent coaching freshman and junior varsity basketball at Stafford High School in her native Stafford, VA. While at Stafford High School, Duran also spent time as the assistant varsity softball coach and volunteered her time to coach the Stafford 14u AAU girls basketball team.

Duran played collegiate basketball at Division II Francis Marion University in South Carolina. As a two-year starter and two-year captain, Duran helped lead the Patriots to four NCAA Division II Tournament appearances. In three of those four appearances, Francis Marion advanced to at least the Sweet Sixteen and reached the national semifinals during the 1997-98 season.

Proficient in several computer programming languages, Duran earned a B.S. in Computer Science from Francis Marion in May 2001.

Duran will be the fourth head coach in the program's 15-year varsity history, but the third coach in less than a year. Former assistant coach Steve Kaneshiki took over the reigns of the program on an interim basis in October following the departure of former head coach Gail Gilchrest-Wallach for the head women's basketball coaching position at Drew University. Kaneshiki is currently pursuing other coaching opportunities.

Despite those recent changes, Matthews is confident Duran can keep the Shorewomen, who are coming off their best two seasons of the past half-decade, headed in the right direction. "We are excited to have Megan join our coaching staff. Her experience and enthusiasm will help make the transition smooth, and we look forward to her commitment to our student-athletes and the program."

Washington went 9-16 overall and 6-12 in Centennial Conference play during the 2007-08 season. The team is graduating two seniors - Elise Conway (Silver Spring, MD/Paint Branch), the first first-team all-conference player in the program's history and Brenda Lucas (New London, PA/Avon Grove), the first Shorewoman ever to play in 100 career games - but returns three starters, including Jane O'Donnell (Cape May Court House, NJ/Wildwood Catholic), who finished second in Division III in three-pointers made per game and averaged a team-leading 15.0 points per game in 2007-08.