Jo Koons enters her second season as ACU’s head softball coach in the 2025-2026 academic year.

The Wildcats were much improved in Koons’ first year. Their record in the Western Athletic Conference jumped from 8-18 in 2024 -- the year before Koons arrived -- to 11-13 in her first season. ACU was predicted to finish eighth in the preseason WAC coaches poll but exceeded expectations by tying for fourth in the final standings.

In 2025, ACU returned to the WAC Softball Tournament for the first time since 2022. The Wildcats went 15-38 for the season – even with the 67^th toughest strength of schedule out of the NCAA’s 300 Division I teams. ACU played 13 games against opponents with an RPI of 50 or better, including tournaments at Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, and Oregon.

ACU won four conference series in 2025, which matches the amount the Wildcats won in the previous two seasons combined. ACU earned a sweep of Southern Utah before rattling off three straight 2-1 series wins over Utah Valley, Tarleton State and California Baptist.

Koons coached starting pitcher Lina Russo to a spot on the All-WAC 2^nd Team after leading the league in innings pitched and the third-most strikeouts thrown. Russo was also named WAC Pitcher of the Week on two occasions, and third baseman Miranda Lista was named WAC Player of the Week in early April.

Another highlight of Koons’ first season at ACU was the shattering of the Poly Wells Field attendance record. On April 2, a standing room-only crowd of 1,261 fans saw the Wildcats host No. 14 Texas Tech. The previous stadium record was 908.

Koons was hired as ACU’s fifth head coach on June 27, 2024. She spent the two previous years as an assistant coach at UT Arlington, working primarily with the defense and as the recruiting coordinator. She helped lead the Mavericks to a fourth-place finish in the 2024 University Credit Union WAC Softball Tournament. Koons coached a pair of All-WAC performers and one all-region selection in 2024.

She started her coaching career as a volunteer assistant at Stanford for the 2016 season. In 2017, she was assistant at Colorado Christian, and then was the head coach at Lassen College, a community college in northern California, for the 2018 campaign.

Koons returned to her alma mater Utah State to work as an assistant in 2019. She then spent two years with Oregon, where she oversaw one of the best defensive units in the country. The Ducks ranked among the top 20 defenses in 2020 and 2021. Oregon finished the 2021 season with 40 wins and a .977 fielding percentage, good for 15th in the country.
 
Koons then was an assistant at Longwood University in Virginia, where she helped guide the Lancers to a Big South Conference championship game appearance. In one season at Longwood, she helped develop LU's Jaden Pone into the 2022 Big South Freshman of the Year. In 2022, Longwood posted a 34-24 overall record and a 21-6 league mark.

As an athlete Koons was a four-year letterwinner and shortstop for the Utah State Aggies from 2012-2015. She hit .269 and compiled a .340 on-base percentage for her career, and also finished with 10 triples which was the 5^th most in program history.

Koons graduated from Utah State in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary studies and earned a Master of Arts in organizational leadership from Colorado Christian in 2018.