Hired in August of 2008, Matt Dempsey enters his fifth season as the head women’s basketball coach at the United States Merchant Marine Academy. Dempsey came to the Academy after being the number one women’s assistant basketball coach at the U.S. Naval Academy from 2003-2008.

Before his stint at Navy, Dempsey was the head men’s basketball coach at Green Mountain College for 13 seasons. He led the Eagles to five Mayflower Conference titles and to a 216-157 record during his tenure as head coach. Green Mountain advanced to the NAIA National Tournament four times under Dempsey. He earned five conference coach-of-the-year honors and was selected as the 1994 NAIA District 5 Coach of the Year. Dempsey left Green Mountain as the winningest coach in the program’s history.  In 2011 he was inducted into the Green Mountain College Athletic Hall of Fame.

From 1986-1989 he was the head women’s basketball coach at Green Mountain College where he posted a 38-34 record in the three seasons.

Dempsey has had other coaching experience as he was the head women’s softball coach from 1990-2001.

As a player, Dempsey was a four-year starter at Castleton State College for the men’s basketball team and was a three-year letterwinner for the men’s soccer team. As a soccer player, Dempsey won the All-District V Honorable Mention Award and was selected to the All-Conference team in 1983. As a basketball player, he won the 1,000 Point Basketball Award in 1984. Dempsey was inducted to the Castleton State College Hall of Fame in 1997.

Dempsey received a Bachelor’s degree in Physical Education in 1984 from Castleton State College. In 1995, he received a Master’s degree in Education from Castleton State.

Dempsey is a native of Belmar, NJ. He currently resides in Flushing, NY and is the father of 20-year old daughter, Alyssa.

Hired in September of 2008, Alexa Shields enters her third season as the assistant women’s basketball coach at the United States Merchant Marine Academy. Shields came to the Academy after being the graduate intern coach at Rutgers-Newark.

While Shields was at Rutgers-Newark some of her responsibilities included recruiting, administrative duties and camp coordinator. She also organized the teams Tip-Off Tournament and served as a Team Academic Advisor.

A three-time All-New Jersey Athletic Conference guard at The College of New Jersey, Shields helped TCNJ to NJAC championships in 2004 and 2006, finishing tied for third in career assists (309) and fifth in steals (196) in school history. She served as team captain as a junior and senior. A four-year letterwinner, she earned first-team All-NJAC honors in 2005 while garnering second unit notice as a sophomore and senior.

She earned her bachelor of science in communications from TCNJ in 2006 after four years on the Dean’s List. Two years later, Shield earned a masters degree in Liberal Studies from Rutger-Newark.

Shields and her family moved from Huntington, Indiana, to Wall Township, New Jersey, for her junior and senior years in high school. She captained Wall High School as a junior and senior where she also lettered twice in tennis.

She is a native of Oakhurst, NJ and currently resides in Long Beach, N.Y.

Katie Brunck enters her first season as an assistant on the Mariner’s coaching staff.  She comes to the academy after spending two years as an assistant coach at NYU Poly.

Her responsibilities at NYU Poly included coordinating recruiting efforts, instituting offensive sets, managing practice schedules, and sending out game contracts.  While there, the team broke the school record for wins in a season, tallying a 19-8 mark; significantly improving on their previous best season of 12-13. 

Brunck helped the team qualify for their first ECAC tournament and under her guidance, had two 1,000 point scorers, two first team all-conference selections, a conference player of the year, a first team All-ECAC player, and a first team All-Metropolitan selection. 

She also aided in the development of NCAA D-III nationally ranked leaders including the #4 ranked double-double producer, #7 ranked rebounder , #39 ranked assists leader, and #41 ranked scorer in points per game.  

Before Brunck began coaching, she was a member of four consecutive regular season conference championship teams at Northwood from 2006-2010, including one NAIA tournament appearance.

In 2010, Brunck graduated from Northwood University with a Bachelor of Business Administration in business management, where she received Dean’s List honors all four years.  In 2012, she earned her Master of Science in organizational behavior from NYU Polytechnic Institute with a concentration in training and development. 

Brunck is a native of and currently resides in Bergenfield, NJ.