2012 Team Coaches
2012 Team Coaches
Congratulations to the all our coaches who were selected for the upcoming travel program. The 2012 Coaches Selections are posted below:
Technical Director
Michael Burch
Michael will assume additional duties this year as the club's Technical Director/Coaches Advisor and have shared responsibilites with Tom Lowrey as the Recruiting Coordinators.
Before concluding his career in college volleyball as Head Coach of the Division 1 Radford University Highlanders, Michael was Head Coach at West Virginia Wesleyan College, First Assistant at Texas Woman's University and Assistant Coach at his alma mater Virginia Tech. Michael is a certified IMPACT Instructor for the region and holds a CAP II certification, serves on various boards and committees and was a speaker for the Virginia High School League Coaches Association.
13's Blue Team Coaches
Sherrilyn Hanna - Head Coach
Sherrilyn is entering her seventh year of coaching with VA Elite. A native of Central Missouri, she moved to Northern Virginia with her family in August 2003. Sherrilyn was a 3 sport athlete (volleyball, basketball, and track) in high school and went on to play for Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO, as a scholarship athlete in both volleyball and basketball. She has two daughters who have played for VA Elite. Her oldest daughter, Marguerite, plays for Azusa Pacific University in Southern California while her youngest daughter, Juliane, is currently playing for the University of Central Missouri.
Sherrilyn has coached the freshman team at Loudoun County High School in Leesburg, VA for two seasons. She has also coached several seasons of youth basketball and middle school volleyball and is beginning her ninth season as a club volleyball coach. She coached the inaugural season of VA Elite's 12s age division in 2009. She is a USAV Impact certified coach and also has her CAP I certification.
13's Black Team Coaches
Kim Sears - Head Coach
Sears brings an impressive resume of both playing and coaching experience to VA Elite. As a teacher/coach at heart, Kim has a real passion to pass on her knowledge and enthusiasm for the sport of volleyball. She has accumulated 30 + yrs., through a variety of all age levels, boys, girls, collegiate women and men, and adult women and men USAV teams as well as numerous camps/clinics.
She began her playing career at Tulane University and was the first female athlete ever to receive a volleyball scholarship while participating in 2 collegiate sports, volleyball and basketball, at the time. After she transferred to another D1 school; Missouri State ranked 13th in the country at the time, to finish playing and she began her coaching experience. The Missouri State men’s volleyball club was her first coaching challenge. Upon graduating with a BS ED double major in physical education and biology she pursued a high school teaching a coaching job in Ohio. While she was the head volleyball coach she started a boy’s high school club program.
Shortly after Ohio she took over the volleyball head coaching position at George Mason University improving their program. She brought a new philosophy and techniques from the Midwest to take the program to a new level. Kim also started the GMU summer volleyball camp and it continues to run today. While coaching at GMU she continued to play on a top level women’s USAV team made up of players from up and down the east coast. During that time she also assisted coaching her husband’s, Dave, men’s club at the University of Maryland.
Kim retired from coaching in the collegiate ranks, to start a family, but continued to play and coach women’s AA and men’s A level USAV teams. Later she took a short sabbatical from coaching until her daughters started playing volleyball in LYV middle school program. Kim was Chairman of Loudoun Youth Volleyball for 3 years and head coached all of her young daughter’s teams for several years, continuing to coach for 5 yrs. in NVVA.
She and her husband, Dave of 28 years, met while playing volleyball. Dave played volleyball at The Ohio State and all three daughters play volleyball presently: Sarah at Stetson University and Lauren and Emily at Southern Miss University.
Coach Sears is excited to step back into the role of head coach this year after being an asst. coach with VA Elite while her daughters prepared for college. Kim is also Impact and CAP 1 certified.
14's Team Coaches
Tom Leney - Head Coach
Tom Leney has coached girls’ volleyball for the past ten years. He has worked three years at the high school level, coaching Freshmen, Junior Varsity, and Varsity teams. He has ten years of house and club volleyball experience coaching players ranging from twelve to sixteen years of age, most of it focused at the 14s level. He coached the VA Elite 14s team 2006-2010, with more than 75% of the players playing on their high school varsity team upon graduation from the 14s team. He is a student of the game, having become USAC CAP 1 certified and completing the USAV volleyball conditioning specialist program. He is pending his CAP II certification While he played volleyball recreationally, he played varsity tennis and squash on a Division 1 team ranked 5th in the nation, so he knows what it takes to play sports at the collegiate level. Tom is married with two daughters, both volleyball players. His youngest is an alumnus of VA Elite and played Division 1 volleyball under scholarship.
Meredith Doyle - Assitant Coach
Meredith is excited to be entering her first year of assistant coaching for Virginia Elite at the 14's level and the middle school clinics. She brings 12 years of playing experience at the youth club, high school, and Division I collegiate level. In the year 2001, her family pioneered the first youth volleyball league with McLean Youth Athletics. As a teenager, Meredith was a dedicated MYA volleyball coach for boys and girls as young as 10 years old.
After entertaining several scholarship offers, Meredith ultimately decided to accept a full athletic scholarship offer from the University of Maryland - College Park. She played Middle Blocker for the Terps while also excelling in academics. She graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Science in General Business and currently resides in McLean, Virginia
15's Team Coaches
Mark Frymire - Head Coach
Since 1991, Coach Frymire (“Fryguy”) has coached over 15 different teams in Michigan, Tennessee, Rhode Island, and Virginia with female and male athletes from 11 to 19 years old. He was part of the original coaching cadre when VA Elite was founded, and returns this year as the head coach of the Virginia Elite 15s team. In VA Elite’s inaugural season in 2006, he was head coach of 15 Vortex team, leading them to a #1 CHRVA ranking and CHRVA Regional Title. In 2007, he continued as head coach of the 15s Adrenaline team, at one point achieving a ranking of 24th in the nation by PrepVolleyball.com. In 2009, he participated as a part-time assistant coach with the same team at the 17s level when they finished 16th in the nation.
In 2004 and 2005, Coach Frymire was the head varsity coach at Edison HS in Alexandria, VA. Prior to his arrival for the 2004 season, Edison had only two wins in the previous four years combined. Within just two seasons, he led Edison to a district championship and was named 2005 National District Coach of the Year.
Prior to taking over at Edison, Coach Frymire was the JV head coach for two seasons at James Madison HS in Vienna, VA, and he also coached at the World Scholar-Athlete Games in 1997 and 2001, after attending as a participant in the original event in 1993. He brings over 20 years of experience in the sport, and has completed numerous coaching clinics including ASEP, USAV
IMPACT, USAV CAP I, Gold Medal Squared, and Winning Edge Volleyball Workshop.
He named his dog “Sprawl”, out his love for backcourt defense.
Lexi Patton - Assistant Coach
Lexi is entering her second year with Virginia Elite after assisting with the 14’s age group for her inaugural year with the club. Lexi is a native of suburban Detroit (Birmingham, MI) and played 4 years of Varsity volleyball for Marian High School and was a member of Motor City Volleyball Club for 6 years. She went onto to Loyola University in Chicago for 2 years before transferring to The George Washington University and continued playing club volleyball with the Colonials.
After graduation from GW, Lexi moved to coastal North Carolina where she took up beach volleyball for the first time and enjoyed playing in recreational leagues. Soon after her husband got out of the military his job brought them back to the DC area, where she discovered Elite. She is USAV IMPACT and CAP I certified and enjoyed coaching during her high school years with fellow teammates and is excited to get back into the coaching realm with VA Elite. In addition to assisting at Elite, Lexi also is an assistant coach with the McLean High School Varsity program.
She currently resides in Reston with her husband and 2 Huskies!
Barden Cleeland - Assistant Coach
Barden looks forward to her first season with Virginia Elite after coaching in the middle school clinic in the fall. She is a southern California native with 10 years of playing experience at the high school varsity, youth club, and collegiate levels. She attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, playing middle blocker and leading the Engineers to four of their most successful seasons in history, including two appearances at the NCAA Championships Sweet 16. She left the team as first in career blocks, a member of the 1000 Kill Club, and was named a NEWVA All-New England and AVCA All-American. Barden graduated in 2010 with a degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering and currently resides in Arlington, VA. She is USAV IMPACT and CAP I certified and has enjoyed coaching previously at the middle school and high school levels.
16's Team Coaches
Joseph Ziegler - Head Coach
As an avid athlete and gym rat, Joseph has been playing elite basketball and volleyball since his middle school years. He has coached several high school teams to their sectional finals, a Jr. Olympic team to a fifth place finish in the open division, three Western Region teams to Empire State Gold and has worked with a player who has won two Division I titles, played professionally and is a future Olympian.
After graduating from Buffalo State College, Joseph immediately found an English teaching job at a local alternative school and began coaching in the Buffalo area. He served as Assistant Varsity and Head Junior Varsity Coach for the boys program at Frontier High School. While there, he created a culture in the program where athletes trained year round. Joseph also recruited talent for the elite Jr. Olympic program known as Eden VBC. During his tenure at Frontier, his boys were finalist in three sectional championships and lost all three to a team that would eventually be crowned state champions or finalist. Joseph was very proud to see several of his athletes go on to play volleyball for such schools as I.P.F.W., Springfield and Vassar.
Joseph also experienced success during his stay at Eden VBC. Eden, a club located in one of the top three most-recruited areas in the country for boys Division I volleyball, was a perennial Jr. Olympic Open qualifier. Joseph coached teams at all age levels and also acted as a head coach at Eden’s developmental camps. In 2009 his 18s team was the last East Coast team to be left in the gold bracket, where they eventually placed fifth in the open division. He was very proud, once again, to have many of his players go on to play college volleyball at Penn State, Ohio State, George Mason, Princeton, Springfield and Juniata. Along with the fifth place finish at Nationals, he also had the pleasure of coaching Matt Anderson. Matt won two Division I titles with Penn State, played in Korea professionally and is now on the U.S. National team.
Most recently, Joseph coached VA Elite's 17s team. Team X had a wonderful year recruiting, winning tournaments and earning a bid to Nationals. Four of his players verbally committed to play volleyball in college (William and Mary, NC State and Georgia State), three of his players were listed in the top 100 to watch in the Nation and six were put on a list recognizing the best in Virginia. One of those aforementioned players also made first alternate to the U.S. Youth National Team. Finally, his team won the Monument City Classic and their region, earning them a bid to Nationals in Atlanta.
Joseph has a Master of Science in Educational Computing and a Bachelor of Science in Secondary English Education. He lives in Alexandria and is a Technology Integration Specialist for Alexandria City Public Schools. He is also
an assistant coach at T.C. Williams High School.
Christa Carnduff - Assistant Coach
17's Team Coaches
Tom Lowrey - Head Coach
tom.lowrey@vaelite.com
Coach and President of Virginia Elite, Tom is starting his 7th year with the club. After taking a year off in order to work to continually take VA Elite to the next level, Tom returned to coach the 15's team in a wildly successful season.
Tom has over 15 years of volleyball experience as a player and as a coach, including 8 years of Club coaching as well as 3 years of coaching high school volleyball. Tom has coached every age group from the 12s through the 18s. Since starting VA Elite, each of Tom's teams has reached the national tournament. He has also coached soccer and swimming and has worked to turn programs around, capturing 2 U-14 boys league championships in soccer, as well as helping the Bren Mar Marlins swim club, with an 18 year history of winless seasons, to their first victory and later their first division championship.
As a student at Penn State, Tom worked as an assistant with the Penn State Women's club team, under the tutelage of Lori Duncan, current Eastern Kentucky University Head Coach. Each of his past club teams has finished in the "Open" division (Top 10) in the CHRVA region. In addition to coaching club volleyball, he has coached with the Marshall HS JV squad helping develop their first winning season. Tom has also worked as the McLean HS Varsity Head Coach. Tom currently holds a CAP 1 certification and is working towards CAP level II certification.
Tom continues to strive to bring excellence to VA Elite and is looking forward to working with this years athletes, parents and coaches.
Mary Beth Brown - Assistant Coach
Mary Beth looks forward to entering her second season with VA Elite
after being an 18s assistant coach in 2010-2011. She also coaches in
the middle school clinic program in the fall. She is USAV IMPACT and
CAP I certified.
Mary Beth is a Northern Virginia native that started playing
volleyball at James Madison High School in Vienna, Virginia. For
college, she went on to play Division 1 at the University of Maryland
- College Park where she contributed to two ACC Championships as a
right side hitter and left the team as third in career blocks. She
gained coaching experience by working volleyball camps every summer at
UMD. She now lives in Arlington, VA and continues playing volleyball
in recreational leagues when she’s not working at the Department of
Defense.
Dave McWhinney - Assistant Coach
18's Team Coaches
Andy Halaz - Head Coach
Andy Halaz begins his first season with Virginia Elite as the Head coach of the 18s team. He is joining the Virginia Elite family while also serving as the first assistant for the Georgetown University women's team. He is in his second season at Georgetown and comes after working with St. Louis University's team for the 2008 and 2009 seasons.During his time at SLU, the Billikens had 2 Top-25 seasons, the first time in program history. Andy has also coached collegiately at his undergraduate intuition where the Rockhurst Hawks were a two-time NCAA Division II Participant.
He is also no stranger to the club volleyball scene as he has coached with St. Louis High Performance from 2005-2010. He worked with boys and girls teams ranging from 11s-18s over his stint with the club and has coached in 5 Open Nationals. He is also active with USA Volleyball's High Performance Pipeline.
The St. Louis, Mo., native earned his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Theology at Rockhurst University in 2008 before going on to receive his Masters in Theology from Saint Louis University in 2010.
Melanie Bradshaw - Assistant Coach
Melanie is in her sixth year coaching with VA Elite. This year she will serve as an assistant coach for the 18's team. At Elite she has assisted the 16s, 17s, and 18s teams. In the five years with Elite Melanie's teams have won the Chesapeake Region Championships four times. She is USAV IMPACT and CAP I certified.
Melanie brings over 18 years of playing experience and a love and passion for the sport. After playing in middle school and high school club, she played as a right side hitter at Bluefield College (NAIA Division I).
After graduating college, Melanie assisted with an NVVA boys team for two years. She then became a head coach for the Metro VA Girls 15s and 16s teams as well as the NVVA Select 15s. She has assisted several high school programs, including Westfield, Edison, and Paul VI high schools. Her first year of assisting at Paul VI was a major highlight, since they won the state championship that year. She is currently an assistant coach at T.C. Williams in Alexandria.
Brian Vetock - Assistant Coach
A Recent college graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University studying Mass Communications, Public Relations in Richmond, VA-Brian started out his volleyball career playing for the former club Metro VA. After switching over to NVVA, Brian started the boys club team at Robinson High School and then to play on in college where he also formed a Men’s Club team which competed in several national tournaments.
During his freshman year of college, Brian was able to take part in being a volunteer coach for VCU’s women volleyball team, where he was coached under their present head coach, James Finley.
While playing, Brian also found the time to teach Juniors at Richmond Volleyball Club (RVC.) During his tenure, Brian spent 3 years coaching and assisting various levels of play including both Junior Girls and Boys.
This is Brian’s first year with Virginia Elite!
