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It happened in the Gold Medal game between Pakmen 17U Gold and Phoenix Legacy (17U) at OVA Challenge Cup, on Dec 2 2023, in Oakville:
By DAVID WINER Special The Pakmen have drawn a line in the sand that may never be crossed. Competing at the Ontario Volleyball Association Beach Provincials, the Pakmen Volleyball Club prevailed with a flurry of gold medal performances that would confound the most optimistic prognosticator. “It was a record performance!” said ecstatic Pakmen director Kelly Smith. “These were the most Tier 1 gold medals at a Provincial Championship in OVA history.” Many of the 200 enthusiastic youngsters, who took to the six regulation sized courts this summer to participate in Elite Beach training, competed at an unworldly level resulting in 10 out of a possible 15 Tier 1 gold medal showings. “We are especially proud of head coach Jessy Satti after coming off a record-breaking indoor season,” said Smith. “His 18U boys won Provincials and Nationals, and he became the first coach to ever win three consecutive 18U national titles. Now, his male beach athletes performed so well, winning almost every single event, including several all-Pakmen finals, and in some cases, winning gold, silver and bronze. “Also, Arjun Selhi, who played for Jessy as an indoor player and was one of Jessy’s assistant coaches on the beach for three years is now in charge of the girls’ program and they also enjoyed a lot of success.” Assisting Satti on the boys’ side were Omar Abu Jazar, Saad Shaikh and Kadeem Clarke, while Selhi was assisted by Osemi Efosa. “Across the board on the boys and girls side we’ve had a tremendous amount of success, said Satti. “I give a lot of credit to the athletes, who make the conscious decision to stick with their teammates and do beach volleyball with the club. It creates a really good dynamic and team culture. There’s lots of opportunities for players to do different beach programs with other coaches, but I’ve found our athletes enjoy our beach program. It shows that the club is able to offer high quality programming 12 months of the year, and our results from indoor and beach proves that.” Setting the tone were Pakmen trailblazers Salma Abdelrazak on the girls’ side and the tandem of Misha Panasiouk and Aleksa Rakic on the boys’ side who worked overtime to collect two gold medals apiece. Panasiouk and Rakic mastered the 15U and 16U Tier 1 age groups that were chock-full of Pakmen teammates. “I think Misha and Aleks had a great summer. When they played up (16U) and won, it was definitely a special moment,” said Satti. “I think they showed people that the way beach volleyball is played can outweigh factors like size and athleticism. We make sure to teach beach the way we feel it should be played, and we’ve done that since the inception of our club. By getting athletes to buy into the training and structure, it puts them in a position to have a lot of success.” The 15U division, contested August 12-13 at Toronto’s Ashbridges Bay, was swept by Panasiouk and Rakic, followed by silver medalists Davis Hinshelwoods and Spencer Ham and bronze medalists Cooper Spehr and Jonathan Sousa. Pakmen inhabited two of the three podium placings in the 16U competition on August 5-6 with Yahia Elsayed and Chris Tang securing the bronze. The highlight of the tournament for both Panasiouk and Rakic was beating Elsayed and Tang in the 16U semi-final. “We lost to them in the final at an earlier tournament and they became the duo that we always wanted to play and beat,” explained Rakic. “While we lost to them in the first set, we fought through it and eventually won the third set 18-16.” “Even though we were ranked No. 1 entering the competition, the favorites were Yahia and Chris, who are both really good beach players and were also the tournament winners last year,” added Panasiouk. “We are also a year younger than them. But in a really close third game we were able to win, despite the fact the majority of the audience supported the opposing team.” A lot of planning had to go into Rakic and Panasiouk’s style of play considering there would be extra wear and tear on their bodies competing on back-to-back weekends. “Having to play multiple games a day with only about an hour of time for a break, it came down to how efficiently we used our time to rest and recover,” explained Rakic. “Sitting in the shade, and wearing towels and shirts to conserve our energy, was a must. After finishing each day we used our time to recover using ice, a roller and massage gun to prepare us for the next day and stay as fresh as possible.” However, the biggest reason for success, other than talent, is the rapport the two have developed. “Since Misha joined our rep team two years ago we’ve stayed close friends,” said Rakic, who attends Mississauga’s Applewood Secondary School. “Being able to connect easily from this friendship, it was easy to play together. All the time that we spent practicing on the beach and indoors made our basic skills better and helped us learn how to help each other through our struggles. If I’m struggling Misha is there to help me, and if Misha is struggling, I am there to help him.” Panasiouk, who attends Earl Haig in North York, says there’s a number of factors for their success. “The first is, of course, trust. We know that at the most crucial and stressful moment we will make the right decision that will lead the team to success. The second is communication. We are good at making our jobs easier and more efficient by communicating on the court; and the third is we are strong players in terms of set of skills no matter who the opponent serves, we know that we will definitely score a point.” “We are able to adapt and learn from our opponents,” added Rakic. “We understand how our opponents play and not only play to our strengths, but to their
By DAVID WINER
Mississauga Pakmen officials were ecstatic with the club’s medal sweep at the OVA 18U Ontario Beach Championships August 6-7 at Toronto’s Ashbridges Bay.
Unfortunately, with the second- and third-place finishers being as proud and talented as they are, winning a silver medal, as Jordan Pereira and Tomas Sorra did, or a bronze medal, earned by Pranshu Patel and Harnoor Grewal, only served as reminders that they didn’t win the gold.
Instead, that honor was shared by Pakmen’s Xander Ketrzynski and Toronto’s Jack McBain, who teamed up to defeat Pereira and Sorra in the final, 21-13, 21-19.
“I was really impressed to see five out of six Pakmen players on the podium for 18U,” commented Pakmen beach head coach Jessy Satti. “I watched all weekend and there was some fantastic volleyball. They did a great job representing the club.”
Ketrzynski and McBain, both 16 and playing up two age groups, reached the final with a 2-0 (21-15, 21-15) win over Patel and Grewal in the semi-finals, and a 2-1 (17-21, 21-17, 15-3) decision over eventual fourth-place finishers Nico Duke and Mitchell Neuert of Leaside in the quarters.
“The podium finish seemed to be right in my opinion,” added Satti. “It was an interesting summer with most of the boys playing indoor volleyball, (so) a lot of them hadn’t had much formal beach training this summer. Any of those three teams could have come out on top, so the results seem pretty accurate.”
Asked what separated Ketrzynski and McBain from their Pakmen challengers, Satti said that there was very little.
“I watched them play all weekend and they were definitely a physical team,” summarized Satti on the winners. “They had a strong presence at the net with solid blocking and effective attacking.”
According to Ketrzynski, “What makes Jack and I a successful team is probably the fact that we have been playing together for around four years.”
The 6-foot-9 Ketrzynski, who will enter Grade 11 at Toronto’s York Mills Collegiate in the fall, added that he and the 6-foot-4 McBain seemed to find an extra gear in the quarter-finals.
“The team that gave us the most trouble was Neuert and Duke,” said Ketrzynski. “Everything really started to click in the third set against (them) when we came out, after a shaky start, and beat them 15-3 in the third.”
Ketrzynski and McBain, who doesn’t play indoor volleyball, but instead excels in hockey having starred for Don Mills Flyers and became a first-round pick of the Ontario Hockey League’s Barrie Colts earlier this summer, let it be known that their jubilation for winning was met with some relief as well.
That’s because Xander’s brother Cole held all the family bragging rights after winning the Provincial 15U title the previous week along with teammate Peter Rugosi.
“(It’s) definitely (a relief) for me and for Jack because his sister also won 18U gold the same weekend,” said Xander. “(Although) I don’t think (my other brother) Trent brought home a medal because he wasn’t very enthusiastic after the tournament.”
All three brothers initially took up volleyball because of their dad Alex’s involvement in the sport. Alex, a member of the Pakmen’s coaching staff, was a member of Team Canada at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games. He was also a member of the Junior Men’s team that won the first-ever gold medal for Canada in a sanctioned international tournament, the 1978 NORCECA Junior Championships in Mexico.
“(Dad’s success) is what started (my interest in volleyball), but now I just really enjoy the sport,” said Xander.
Pereira and Sorra reached the championship final with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-14) victory over Adam Child and Chris Dorsey of Toronto in their semi-final, and a 2-0 (21-3, 21-6) decision over Anthony DeGirolamo and Logan House in the quarters.
Meanwhile, Patel and Grewal had beaten Justin Lui and Mathew Ganzhorn 2-0 (21-18, 22-24) in their quarter-final confrontation.
“Pranshu and I lost in the semis to a bigger team,” explained Grewal, who along with Patel, stands 6-foot-1. “It was (also) our first time playing together since 14U Grade 8.
“(But,) it was easy to play with him,” added Grewal, who will be attending Grade 12 at Mississauga Secondary School in the fall, “because he is my close friend and we are both left handed, which threw teams off a bit.”
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