Coaches and Staff

Paul Schiffer – Club Director
Paul is one of the founders of AVC. He is the Club Director for day to day business. He is currently the assistant coach of the 17’s and 18’s.  He helped lead the 2018 17’s to two qualifier championships and runner up in a third one.  He was the Assistant Coach on the 2015 AAU National Championship 17 National team. He has coached several teams to OVR Championships as well as leading his teams to the Nationals 5 times. He has served as the Assistant Coach for teams have qualified open 6 times. He has coached 64 athletes that have gone on to play in college including 32 D1 athletes. He has coached at the CYO, Regional, National and Open level. He also serves as the Business Development, Recruiting Director, Transportation Coordinator, and Housing Director for the club.

Brian Highfield
Brian is the Academy's co-founder and co-owner. He is in charge of AVC’s administration and finances. Before his 6 year varsity coaching career began at Aurora High School, Brian participated on Case Western Reserve University Men’s Club Volleyball Team, who were two-time NCAC Champions in 1993 and 1994. Brian is well known in the volleyball community and has 20 years of playing experience as a USA Volleyball player. Brian is IMPACT, ASEP, CAP I and CAP II certified.

Brian Scipione
Brian is one of the founders of AVC along with Brian Highfield. He is the Club Director for the 14 and under Regional and American teams. After coaching older players the first 3 years of AVC, he moved to coaching younger national teams in the 12 - 14’s age groups and has qualified 4 of his 5 teams to nationals. His teams best finishes are 13th in the country in 2013 and 11th in the National division in 2014. He also coached beach in 2014 and his players finished 9th in the country for the 14’s Open division. He really has a passion to coach and train the players in these age groups. Besides Brian’s coaching experience, he also brings valuable playing experience to the table, having participated in Men’s USAVB and in local volleyball leagues. Brian is IMPACT, ASEP, CAP I and CAP II certified.

Jeff Reaser
This will be Jeff's 4th season with AVC. He has 8 seasons of coaching experience with three area clubs, as well as 3 years experience with St Joseph's Academy as varsity assistant. He has 3 USAV national qualifications. 2013 17-2 open class as the only club in the OVR to qualify 2 Open teams in the same age class, 2014 15-1 national class 5th place, 2015 16-1 open class 5th place. In addition to coaching Jeff will be heading up a new position of Director of Player Development for the National Program. Jeff is also Impact Certified.

Meredith Gromala

This will be Meredith's 7th season with AVC. A native from California, Meredith has 14 years of coaching experience, both as an Assistant and as a Head Coach. She will remain the Head Coach for our 17-Red team. In Meredith's first year at AVC her 17-2 team qualified Open as the only club in the Ohio Valley Region to qualify 2 Open teams in the same age group. Out of her six seasons at AVC, coaching teams ranging from 15s to 18s, she has qualified six times, including two teams in the 2018-19 season as a Head Coach. She has coached in many USAV and JVA Tournament Championships in the Open level. Meredith aids colleague Jeff Reaser in facilitating the Player Development and Positional Training for AVC. 
Aside from coaching, Meredith is the Club Recruiting Coordinator and one of the Social Media Coordinators. In her time here she has advised over 130 athletes during their recruiting process. In addition to her time at AVC she has been elected to the AVCA Assistant Coaches Committee as the Club Rep and has presented at the AVCA Convention the last two years.  She was also an interim assistant coach at Kent State in 2014, the most successful season in program history. 

Maria Prcela-Jackson

Maria has been with AVC since 2011. Prior to AVC she was an assistant director of JumpServe Volleyball Club. She has been involved in youth sports for 20+ years as a coach and administrator. She coached both basketball and volleyball at the CYO level and was her parish Athletic Director for 7 years.
At AVC she manages the 15-18's American and Regional teams as well as being the contact person for AVCs uniform and apparel needs. Her 30+ years of experience as an application analyst in the decorated apparel industry has provided AVC the opportunity to set a precedent in volleyball team apparel.

Elizabeth Balser
Elizabeth began coaching for AVC in 2013. She has played volleyball since she was 8-years-old and is excited to continue to share her knowledge of the game. Elizabeth graduated from Strongsville High School in 2008, Ashland University in 2012 with a degree in Child Development and Family Studies and with her Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from The University of Akron in 2018. She works as a Mental Health Therapist for an agency in Cleveland. Elizabeth played on JO national teams and at the club level in college. She likes to play sand and indoor leagues in her spare time. Elizabeth is IMPACT certified. 

Kim Bauchens

Jason Bednar

This will be Jason's 2nd year coaching at AVC and coaching Club Volleyball. Last year he coached a successful 11R team and will be coaching 12 Blue this year. He has 5 years of coaching experience with Kenston Rec Volleyball. Jason also has had 19 years experience of coaching both high school and college football. He has two daughters that play for AVC. Maddie is a Sophomore at Baldwin Wallace University where she plays volleyball and Abby is on AVC's 18 Red National team.

Karol Coundourides 

Karol has over 20 years experience coaching volleyball at She has taken many CYO girls' and boys' teams on to win City Championships and has a very high level of success in the USAV circuit, as well. She was inducted into the Magnificat High School Athletic Hall of Fame, as well as the Baldwin Wallace University Athletic Hall of Fame and was elected Senior Female Athlete of the Year in both high school and college. Her children, Alyssa, Alex and Kyra are all Collegiate Volleyball Players. Her son Eli plays USAV National Volleyball.

Kyra Coundourides 

Stacy Coundourides
Stacey was a 4 year starter for the Baldwin-Wallace Men's Club Team. He has over 15 years of coaching experience with boys and girls CYO and club teams. He has coached at both Northcoast Volleyball Club, Southwest Volleyball Club and for the last 3 years has been with AVC. He is IMPACT certified.

Hannah Dick

This is Hannah’s first year coaching club volleyball. She has played volleyball since she was 10 years old. Four of those years were devoted to playing for AVC. Hannah graduated from Berea-Midpark High School in 2019 where she was a 2 year Varsity Letterman in volleyball and a 3 year Varsity Letterman in indoor and outdoor track. This past fall, Hannah coached the 7th grade volleyball team at Berea-Midpark Middle School. She led her team to a 13-3 season, finishing third place in the conference and in the tournament. That is the best record ever in Berea-Midpark history. Hannah currently attends Baldwin Wallace University where she is majoring in Sports Management with a business minor. Hannah is certified in CPR, Concussion, and First Aid.

Jillian Doherty

This is Jillian's second year coaching at AVC. Last year she was the head coach for an 11's team and is returning as an assistant coach. She started playing volleyball in 7th grade and has experience in all positions but loves right side. Originating from Warren, MI near Detroit she attended at Cousino High School, played club at Michigan Elite and continued to play for 2 years on the John Carroll Women's club volleyball team. She is currently a Senior at JCU studying Industrial/Organizational Psychology with a minor in Leadership Development. She looks forward to another great year of coaching with 11's! She is IMPACT, SafeSport, and Concussion certified.

Adam Evans
Adam Evans has coached nine seasons of Varsity Volleyball between both Norton High School and Massillon Washington High School. Adam has also been active in USA Volleyball as a club coach, working with 8 clubs in various roles, including 7 years as a club Director. He has been the head coach or assistant coach of six teams that have qualified for the USAV Girls' Junior Championships, including five for AVC. One team qualified after the 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2015 seasons and two teams qualified after the 2014 season. Adam played for 17 years in Men's USAV mostly at the A and Open levels as a middle blocker. Adam is a CAP II certified volleyball coach, a USAV Regional Official and is serving a third term on the Ohio Valley Region Board of Directors.

Liz George
Liz started coaching at AVC in 2018, after 5 years of coaching club volleyball outside the Ohio area. She started playing volleyball at age 10, played at Solon High School and a variety of area clubs, such as Renaissance, CVC and Eastside.
Liz spent her first three years coaching for Memphis Metro Volleyball Club in Tennessee and is very excited to be back in the Cleveland area with AVC. 
Liz currently teaches and coaches volleyball at Saint Martin de Porres High School.

Brian Gold

Brian grew up in Detroit, Michigan. Learned to play the game with the Men's Club Volleyball team at Grand Valley State University, as a setter, libero, and hitter. In August, he moved to Cleveland when he was hired as the Assistant Volleyball Coach at Baldwin Wallace University (D3). It is his first year with AVC and he will be coaching 15-White this season.
Prior to BW, he spent two years as an assistant coach at Wayne State University (D2) and coached for Legacy Volleyball Club in Michigan. His Legacy 16-3 East team finished 5th overall in Classic at 2019 AAU Nationals. In addition to his own team, he helped with Legacy 15 Elite, and ran the weekly Position Training for Legacy's National level teams. He also has three years of high school and club coaching experience in Grand Rapids while attending GVSU.
He has worked as a summer camp coach for the University of Michigan, Oakland University, Wayne State, GVSU and Gold Medal Squared.
Brian's favorite quote that guides his coaching philosophy is "I never lose...I either win, or I learn." - Nelson Mandela

Charlene Gruhn

Char started with AVC in 2017 after many years involved with volleyball, both as a coach and as a player. She coached the 8th grade team for two seasons at the Daniel Island School in Charleston, SC where she specialized in teaching offense execution and decision making, defensive positioning as well as blocking technique. As a two year starter at Tri-C and current player for the past 30+ years (hard court and beach) in USA Volleyball, Char brings her experience to her teaching and game management. Professionally, Char leads technology delivery and operation teams and strives to share her experiences beyond volleyball to help her players grow both athletically and personally.  

Sara Haldi
Sara started coaching in 2017 for AVC as an assistant coach. Along with coaching at AVC she has coached at St. Peter Chanel(Freshman Volleyball Coach), Regina(Freshman Volleyball Coach), and Ravenna(JV Co-Coach and now Varsity Head Coach). When not coaching, Sara can be found teaching Algebra 1 and 2 at Ravenna High School. She still enjoys playing the sport herself every chance she gets and is normally found playing on at least 1 4s  sand volleyball team in the summer months. 

Mike Hanson

Kalli Holdash
Kalli started with AVC in 2014. Kalli enjoys training with the youth programs of the club in JVC, camps and regional to national level teams. Kalli’s team has qualified for Nationals along with finishing first in the OVR.  Kalli is IMPACT, SafeSport and Concussion certified.

Kailey Holland

This is Kailey's third year coaching at AVC. The past couple years, Kailey's team ranked high in the OVR's. She has enjoyed coaching such fun and successful groups of girls. She has played volleyball for over 12 years, 3 of which at AVC. She was a defensive specialist at Walsh Jesuit High School, and continued to play on the John Carroll Women's club volleyball team. She is currently a Senior at JCU studying Child and Family Studies, Psychology with a track of Speech Pathology. She looks forward to another great year of coaching. She will bring enthusiasm, good sportsmanship, and endurance to the girls on the court. She is IMPACT, SafeSport, and Concussion certified.

Michael Jackson
Michael has been with AVC since 2012. He has coached both boys and girls teams with AVC and at Jump Serve Volleyball Club. His teams consistently place in the top 20 in the OVR. Michael was the JV coachBrecksville Broadview Hts. High School for 5 years and was then the Head coach Hathaway Brown.He has a passion for the sport and is driven to teach success in team unity as well as individual improvement. He is IMPACT, Safesport, FirstAid, CPR and Concussion.  certified.

Meaghan Jacobs

Christian Jolley

Christian’s began coaching at AVC in 2016. He has coached club volleyball for eight years, six years at the national level, and at the high school level for four years. Christian played high school volleyball for Centerville High School and played for the Ohio University’ men’s club team while serving as a practice player for the OU women’s team. He is currently a special education teacher at Cleveland Heights High School.

George Kambic

George has coached in the Cleveland CYO volleyball program for over 30 years as either a head coach or assistant, and primarily at the 8th grade level. He has also assisted as many teams as possible at the lower grade levels.  He also coached at Hathaway Brown and Hawken.  For club volleyball, he has been with AVC since its inception where he has coached mostly 14 regional teams and has assisted at other age levels. He has also coached with a number of other club programs over the years, such as Cannon and Renaissance. He is Impact and CAP 1 certified.

Nicolette Mauer

Nicolette began with AVC in 2018 and has spent 8 seasons coaching at Independence High School as the JV Coach and 1 year at Twinsburgh. Nicolette was a 4 year letter winner in at Cuyahoga Heights High School as the teams Libero where she earned many awards in the area and conference.

Michele Konopka

Maggie Lombardi

Mike Maurer

Michael began coaching for AVC in 2018 after spending 4 years coaching at Maverick and Eastside. Michael has also coached at Ledgemont HS as the varsity Head Coach, Kenston High School as the JV coach, Laurel as the JV coach and most recently Independence High School as an assistant where they lost in the State Semifinals. Michael is a certified HS referee as well. Michael has been playing competitve Volleyball for the past 12 years and is very active in private lessons where he enjoys sharing his knowledge of the sport. Last year Michael took his JO team to Nationals for the first time where they finished with a 4th place finish in their division.

John Matsumoto

John (Motts) has been coaching for AVC since 2014. He brings with him over 25 years volleyball coaching experience including at the high school junior varsity and varsity levels as well as JO. He previously served as a JO Volleyball club director and head coach for LEVA and as a head coach for 12 years at CVC.  His JO experience consists of coaching National level teams at the 15 through 18 age groups.

Dave Olson

This will be Dave’s fourth year coaching at AVC,  his first three years he was an assistant coach at the 12’s, 13's and 14's levels.  Dave is also the Fairview freshman girls volleyball coach..  Before coming to AVC, he was a head coach at another club were he coached 11's and 12's teams along with coaching CYO. Dave played over 10 year in Men's USAV, mostly at the A level along with many indoor and outdoor local volleyball leagues.

Tom Ray

Emily Sokolowski

Emily began her coaching career at AVC in 2018. She coached at Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School during the 2018 season and Revere High School during the 2019 season. Emily played 6 years of club at the national level, two being at AVC, and later played for Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania. Emily graduated in May of 2018 with a dual major in Early Childhood Education and Special Education and a minor in Middle School Mathematics. She is currently a teacher in the Revere Local School District. Emily enjoys playing sand volleyball and indoor whenever she has the opportunity.

Erick Sopata
Erick was the Head volleyball coach at Strongsville High School for 16 years and has won over 300 varsity matches. He was named conference coach of the year 4 times and District coach of the year twice. In 2013 Erick led the Mustangs to their first ever District Championship and Regional finals. Erick has coached 16 athletes who have gone on to play at the collegiate level, 9 of those athletes played at the DI level.  Erick has coached at a few volleyball clubs over the years including: Southwest, Players Choice and Ignite. Many of his teams have finished the season as Regional Champions. Erick has been with AVC for the last three years coaching the top 11’s teams and finding great success. In addition to coaching indoor at AVC, Erick has also coached the AVC 12U teams on the beach. In 2015 Erick helped qualify 4 teams to the USA Beach National Championships. Erick played volleyball for the Kent State Men’s MIVA Volleyball team. After college he played USA volleyball at the AA/Open levels and has won 2 regional championships.

Mary Vincent

Gabby Wine

Hanna Zehel

Heather has been coaching volleyball since 1996. She started her coaching career at Baldwin Wallace University being the JV coach for one season before being hired as a junior high ELA teacher in Amherst. She was the JV coach/Varsity assistant at Amherst Steele High School from 1997-2004. Heather got back into coaching as the 7th grade coach in Amherst for four seasons from 2011- 2014. During this time, Heather coached at AVC for three seasons. As a player, Heather was a State SemiFinalist in 1992 playing for Amherst Steele High School. She was also a first team All Conference and District player. While studying Elementary Education at Baldwin Wallace University, she was a 4 year letterman in volleyball, 2 year letterman in softball, and a 1 year letterman in basketball. Her coaching experience includes basketball and softball as well. Heather enjoys working with the younger players helping to build a fundamentally sound skill base for the girls to build upon as they get older.

Marcy Zoeckler

Marci came to AVC in 2017 with over 20 years coaching and leadership experience. Her 15 Regional team had a successful season, finishing 12th. She has been the Volleyball Coordinator at St Barnabas Parish for 14 years where she organizes all aspects of the girls teams in 3rd-8th grade, boys teams in 5th-8th grade, and co-ed high school teams. She has coached CYO girls and boys since 1996.  She also works for CYO as a Site Coordinator. Her commitment to CYO comes from a passion of teaching volleyball fundamentals to youth players and making the game of volleyball available to young athletes of all skill levels.  Marci is the head Freshmen coach and Varsity assistant coach at Trinity High School. She is the head coach of the Cleveland State Men's Volleyball Team. Marci and her husband John have 7 children and live in Sagamore Hills. She is IMPACT, Safesport, First Aid, CPR, and Concussion certified.

Maddie Bednar

Maddie started her coaching career with AVC in 2018 after seven of years of playing for the club. Last year she coached a successful 11R team and will be helping with 12 Blue this year.  She is a graduate of Kenston high school where she played volleyball all four years. Currently she is pursuing a Biology degree at Baldwin Wallace College while playing volleyball. She is very excited to share her volleyball experience with young girls.

Erica Denallo

Erica began coaching for AVC in 2018. She began playing volleyball when she was 9 years old and throughout the years has played on multiple national level teams. She has gone to nationals multiple times as a player and hopes to go to nationals in the future as a coach! She played four years as an outside hitter at Independence High School and lettered three times in high school.  She  went on to play outside hitter all four years at Marietta College and was able to letter four times.  While at Marietta College she was able to get over 1200 digs and over 800 kills.  She is a recent graduate from Marietta with a bachelors degree in Health Science and now works at University Hospitals doing clinical research. She enjoys playing sand volleyball and indoor in her spare time! 

Mike Hanzak
 

Kerri Holdash

Kerri comes to AVC for the 2019 as an assistant coach. Kerri brings vast knowledge to the club as she has experience coaching girls athletics at the high school level. She also served as an administrator with Kent State Women’s Basketball where she was responsible for day to day operations.

Kerri earned her Masters of Public Health from Kent State University in 2018 and Bachelors in Exercise Science from Baldwin Wallace University in 2014. She is looking forward to coaching her first season at AVC along side her twin sister, Coach Kalli.

Shelby Hostetler

Bruce Jones
 

Tom Keller
 

Melissa McClelland

Abby McNutt

Leona Oani

Hillary Varrelmann

Allison Vincent

Ally White

Ally started with AVC in 2017. She has played volleyball for nearly 10 years, 4 of which were at AVC. She was an outside hitter and defensive specialist. She is currently a junior at Kent State University studying Psychology. She looks forward to another great season. She will bring encouragement, good sportsmanship and dedication to the girls on the court. She is IMPACT, SafeSport and Concussion certified.