CIS: Pischke Winningest North American Coach (And Other News)
Head Coach Garth Pischke marked his 1,240th win on Saturday, making him the leader for all-time men's volleyball wins in North America Photo: Manitoba Bisons
Manitoba’s 3-0 win over Regina on Saturday the 18th did much more than improve the Bisons to 3-1; it also marked the 1,240th win for Head Coach Garth Pischke, breaking the all-time win record for North America.
Pischke is 1,240- 336 over his 33 years as Head Coach of the Bisons while posting an impressive .787 win percentage. The win puts him ahead of legendary UCLA coach Al Scates who retired with 1, 239 wins over 50 years with the Bruins.
Over his time time at Manitoba, the father of Dane and Taylor has won nine CIS Titles, was named CIS Coach of the year five times and served as the Head Coach for our men's National team between 1996-2000.
He must have been feeling confident heading into the match as his all-time winning record against Regina is a stellar 136-1.
Volleyball Source would like to congratulate Coach Pischke on an outstanding career, and wish him many more wins to come!
Upsets kick-off the OUA
It was tough to be at the top of the OUA on opening weekend. The No.2 McMaster Marauders and the No. 4 Ottawa Gee-Gees were both rocked by season opening losses.
Western 3 - McMaster 2
It’s hard to imagine that anyone has forgotten about last year’s CIS semi-final between McMaster and the Western Mustangs when the Mustangs stunned the OUA Champs to move on to their first-ever CIS Silver medal.
Since then, the team has gone through drastic changes, losing four starters to graduation - Garrett May, Phil James, Luke Sim and Sean Mckay. Understandably, some might call this a “rebuilding year” for the Mustangs.
While that still may be the case, someone forgot to tell Western because they walked into Burridge Gym on Friday night and did something they haven’t done in a long time - walked away with a win.
As everyone expected, McMaster took the opening two sets 25-19 and 25-23. They should have finished things up right then and there in the third, but Western flipped the script and pushed back. They stole the next three sets right from under the noses of the Marauders, 26-24, 25-22, 15-13.
Justin Scapinello led the Mustangs with 17 kills and a pair of aces while Mike Choja added 11 kills and 4 blocks in the middle. Also impressive in his CIS debut was Zeid Hamadeh who scored four times on five attempts.
The Marauders were able to bounce back the very next night when they took care of Windosr easily 3-0. Jori Mantha was an impressive six-for-seven hitting a .857 while rookie Jake Macneil was impressive in his CIS debut, leading the Lancers with 10.5 points and hitting a
York 3 - Ottawa 0 ; Nipissing 3 - Ottawa 2
The Ottawa/York rivalry has been fierce in the past few years. Back and forth these two teams went for four years as they fought for top spot in the OUA.
Last year saw the end of an era for York as Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson both put away kneepads for the Beach National Team.
This gives Ottawa the chance to grab top spot in the OUA East, right? Wrong.
Hitting a pretty awful .034 as a team, they proceeded to drop three straight sets (26-24, 26-24, 25-12) to the Lions.
They then travelled to North Bay to face the sophmore Nipssing Lakers who failed to record a single win last season.
Well Lakers fans, break out that champagne because Nipissing recorded their first CIS win 3-2 (20-25, 25-23, 19-25, 25-23, 15-11) over the top-ranked team in the OUA. Lindsay Vanderweide led all scorers with 21 points, 13 kills, 6 aces and two blocks.
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