Riley Hilbrandt enters her second season at the helm of the Redbirds swimming and diving program in 2025-26.
In her first season, Hilbrandt guided Illinois State to historical marks including seven All-MVC selections, four school records, 16 top-10 times and five medalists at the 2025 MVC title meet. Under Hilbrandt's guidance seven Redbirds earned All-Valley selections during 2025. In the classroom, the Redbirds also excelled as 11 athletes were selected to the MVC Scholar-Athlete team and the team earning the 2024-25 CSCAA Fall Scholar All-America Team.
Hilbrandt came to Illinois State after spending the past three seasons at East Carolina. During her first season, Hilbrandt played an integral role in recruiting 16 new athletes to the 2022-23 Pirate squad. ECU advanced student-athletes participating in 16 individual events and five relay teams to the most recent CSCAA National Championships. A former Division I swimmer herself, Hilbrandt previously coached at Clarion University and The College of Wooster.
Prior to heading to East Carolina, Hilbrandt spent two seasons (2019-21) as an assistant coach for the men’s and women’s teams at Clarion. During that time, she coached multiple Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) champions and medalists, while helping develop all student-athletes in the program. She also assisted with technique development, wrote dryland and swimming workouts, worked with recruiting, social media promotion and academic advisement.
Hilbrandt spent the 2018-19 season as an assistant coach at Wooster College, as both the men’s and women’s teams at Wooster finished in the top half of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC). She aided in the development of Cameron Gelwicks, who competed at the NCAA Division III Championships in the 50, 100 and 200 freestyle. Hilbrandt’s other duties included preparing dryland workouts, perfecting athletes’ technical skills and recruiting.
Before going to Wooster, Hilbrandt spent a year as a volunteer assistant coach at her alma mater, the University of Nevada, Reno. While working with the Wolf Pack, she conducted video review with athletes and helped them improve their technical stroke skills. She was also in charge of travel arrangements for the team’s competition schedule.
As a student-athlete at Nevada from 2013-17, Hilbrandt was one of the best breaststroke swimmers in school history. She graduated with the eighth-best 100 breaststroke time in program history (1:02.06) and had three of the top-10 times in the 200 breaststroke. In 2016, Hilbrandt helped lead the Pack to an undefeated 10-0 record, the first Mountain West championship in program history, and a top-25 College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) ranking. That same year she earned her first of two All-Mountain West team honors when she finished fifth in the 200 breaststroke.
Hilbrandt graduated from Nevada-Reno in 2017 with a degree in public health and earned her Masters Degree in Kinesiology with a emphasis in coaching from Georgia Southern in 2023.
She is joined in Normal by her partner Andrew Celis, dog Dakota, and cat Kodak
