Molly Poletto

Molly Poletto begins her second season in 2023 as an assistant coach for UCLA, working with the Bruin goalkeepers and team. In her first season in 2022, she helped guide UCLA to the program’s second national title.

The Bruins’ 13-0 start to the season set a new program record, and they went on to tie a school record with 22 victories. Poletto and the Bruin staff earned National and Pacific Region Staff of the Year honors by the United Soccer Coaches. In 2023, the Bruins won the Pac-12 Championship with a 10-0-1 league record.

Poletto served as the goalkeeper coach at Missouri (2019-21) and at Boston University (2017-18). In 2021, she helped lead Missouri to a fifth-place finish in the SEC, an improvement of nine spots from the previous year. At BU, the Terriers won the Patriot League in 2018, finishing with an 11-7-4 record and an unbeaten 7-0-2 mark in league play. Poletto was instrumental in guiding the goalkeeping unit to a combined 11 shutouts in 2018. In her first season at BU, her goalkeepers posted a then-record 10 shutouts as the Terriers finished with a 10-8-3 record and reached the Patriot League Tournament semifinals. Under Poletto’s tutelage, BU surrendered just 0.86 goals per game and the goalkeepers combined for a .798 save percentage.

After injuries cut her playing career short, Poletto turned to coaching, serving for three seasons as an undergraduate assistant coach at the University of Utah and then a volunteer assistant coach in 2016, when she improved her unit’s goals against average from 1.21 to 0.65 with 10 shutouts and a .860 save percentage.

A native of Englewood, Colo., Poletto holds a USSF “B” license and served as an instructor for the USSF “E” licenses. She graduated cum laude from Utah in 2015 with a degree in communications and a minor in psychology and completed her Master’s degree in sports psychology in the spring of 2017.