Manitoba volleyball pairs strike gold on the beach

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This article was published 16/09/2010 (5854 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A pair of local beach volleyball teams served, dug and spiked their way to national championships in Toronto at the end of last month.

Rachel Cockrell and Taylor Pischke won gold in the 18-and-under women’s division, while Ryan Munt and Jason DeRocco took home the top prize for 21-and-under men.

It was the second national beach championship for each pair. Cockrell and Pischke won two years ago, and both have finished second in the past with different partners.

Munt and DeRocco, meanwhile, were champions together in 2007, and Munt won the title in 2005 with a different partner.

For Pischke, the latest champion to come from family of Manitoba’s first family of volleyball, the tournament almost never happened.

“I had a partially dislocated kneecap,” said the 17-year-old St. Norbert resident, who plays indoor volleyball for Fort Richmond Collegiate and the Bisons club team. “It wasn’t until Wednesday that I decided to play (in the weekend tournament).”

With expectations lowered due to Pischke’s injury, the duo surprised everyone — including themselves — when they reached the final.

The Manitobans beat Ontario, 23-21, 19-21, 15-13, in a game that couldn’t have been any closer.

“I was so happy. I wasn’t expecting it,” said Pischke, who grew up playing the beach game with her family every summer at Grand Beach.

Playing with Cockrell, an 18-year-old Silver Heights resident who joined the University of Manitoba women’s team this season, is something Pischke hopes to do for years to come.

“Obviously we’ve done great together,” she said. “We definitely make a good team.”

The partnership between Munt and DeRocco goes all the way back to their grade 11 and 12 seasons at Miles Macdonell Collegiate. The 20-year-old East St. Paul residents said their ability to communicate on the beach is what set them apart from their competition.

“This was the first year that Jay and I really trained a lot in the summer,” said Munt, a fourth-year left side and libero for the U of M men’s team. “It was nice to get training time as part of the beach provincial team as opposed to just training on the weekends and going to nationals.”

In a much more comfortable final for Manitoba, the pair beat Ontario 21-11, 21-16.

DeRocco, who is joining the national B team in Gatineau, Que., this fall, and hopes to play for a European professional team in the near future, said it was hard to compare the two championships he and Munt have won.

“Both are great accomplishments for us,” DeRocco said. “The first one was maybe a little sweeter because we were the new kids on the block, no one knew who we were, and we beat a few big names.

“This time it was a little more of a challenge. People knew who we were, but we surprised a lot of teams with our tactics.”

DeRocco joked that he left the strategy up to his partner, while he just focused on using his 6-foot-7 frame to block everything that came his way.

Munt and DeRocco are focusing on their indoor careers at the moment, but both have thought about how far they could go on the beach. At this summer’s Corona Open in Vancouver, they got a taste of what the competition is like at the senior men’s level.

“We saw some top teams on the FIVB Tour and players that represent Canada,” Munt said. “It’s nice to see where we stack up.”

Added DeRocco: “It was an unbelievable tournament with some amazing teams. If one day that could be us representing Canada I would absolutely love it.”

avi.saper@canstarnews.com