Pietie Coetzee-Turner
Associate Head Coach
Coetzee-Turner officially joined the Wake Forest field hockey program on Jan. 27, 2023 after a three-year stint as an assistant coach at UMass. The Minutewomen posted back-to-back double-digit win seasons in 2021 and 2022, highlighted by an Atlantic 10 Championship appearance last season.
During the 2024 season, Coetzee-Turner's second with the program, Wake's underclassmen were the story for the 2024 season, as freshmen and sophomore student-athletes combined for 62 of Wake's 81 points (76.5 percent) A season ago, the Deacs had just one athlete go for over eight points on the season. In 2024, four student-athletes are over the eight-point mark, with all four being underclassmen Freshman Lauren Storey's 17 points mark the most by a first-year Wake Forest student-athlete since 2016 ACC Freshman of the Year Nicola Pluta's 41 points. Sophomore Mia Schoenbeck received All-ACC honors for the first time being named Second Team All-ACC.
In her first season at Wake Forest, the Deacs defeated two top-10 teams during the 2023 regular season, with an early season 1-0 win against then No. 4 Michigan in the ACC/Big 10 Challenge and a 2-1 win in the ACC regular season finale against No. 10 Syracuse. Nat Friedman received All-ACC honors for the fourth-straight season and senior midfielder Grace Delmotte was named to the All-ACC Second Team for the third time in her career and second-straight season. A program-record 17 Demon Deacons were named to the All-Atlantic Coast Conference Field Hockey Academic Team.
One of the most highly-regarded strikers in the world, Coetzee-Turner is a three-time Olympian, representing South Africa at the 2000 (Sydney), 2004 (Athens) and 2012 (London) Summer Games. She finished her career as the all-time female scoring leader, notching 287 goals over 289 matches in international play.
Her international senior career began in 1995, when Coetzee-Turner represented South Africa at the Atlanta Challenge Cup and became the youngest player (16) to represent the nation on such a stage. The two-time South African Hockey Player of the Year (1997, 2002) went on to play in four World Cups. At the 2002 event in Perth, Australia, Coetzee-Turner was the tournament’s leading scorer.
In addition to serving in an assistant capacity at Indiana (2006), she held numerous roles across South Africa. Along with leading the University of Witwatersrand Johannesburg as head coach, Coetzee-Turner also was director of hockey at St David’s Marist Inanda from 2016-19.
She earned her bachelor's degree in sport psychology from the University of Johannesburg in 2003.