Volleyball Coaching Staff

Coach Denae Buss is a Co-Director and helped start the D-League Volleyball Program. Denae has been the head coach for Cedar Catholic since 2014, leading the program to a State Championship in 2022, as well as 5 other state appearances, two State Runner up titles and a 4th place finish. Previously, she also was an assistant coach for Stanton high school for 2 seasons after finishing her collegiate career.

Denae has also been actively involved in club volleyball for the past 5 years running and coaching her own club, Nebraska Edge, for 5-12 grades and with NE Power for One season.

Coach Tracy Kuester-Burtwistle is a Co-Director and helped start the Nebraska D-League Volleyball Program. Kuester-Burtwistle brings a plethora of coaching experience to the Nebraska D-League. She is currently an assistant with the Battle Creek HS volleyball program. Along with her five years prior at Stanton where she guided the Mustangs to the state tournament four times during her five-year tenure. At Stanton, Kuester-Burtwistle had a 143-31 coaching record, while capturing a state championship, a state runner-up finish and two third-place finishes. She was an executive committee member for the Stanton Youth Development Volleyball program and a volunteer youth coach for 16 years.

Tracy believes strong fundamentals are a key ingredient at an early age. She brings to Nebraska D-League Volleyball Program a proven track record in building a team culture, coaching sound fundamentals with her knowledge of the game as a Hall of Fame inductee in 2007, Kuester-Burtwistle played collegiately at Wayne State College. She was one of the team members of the 1991 WSC volleyball team who was inducted into the Wayne State College Athletic Hall of Fame. Coach Kuester-Burtwistle truly believes in preparing athletes to succeed as adults with the life lessons learned through the process playing on any team or individual sport.