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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
Peter Rugosi can play volleyball for the rest of his life and he will never eclipse what he accomplished over the past 12 months.
After all, how can one improve on perfection.
Paired with fellow Pakmen star Cole Ketrzynski this summer, the two 15-year-olds played up an age group yet still swept the 16U Provincial and National Beach Volleyball titles.
Combining those championships with the Provincial and Eastern Canadian indoor titles he won with the 15U Pakmen, and Rugosi won all four major titles this year.
“I feel extremely lucky because (four titles) is really, really hard to get and I somehow managed to. I never thought that I would be able to achieve what I have achieved this year,” gushed the 5-foot-11 Rugosi on a dream year.
Had Ketrzynski not moved up two age groups during the indoor season, he too would have walked away with four gold medals.
The Coup de gras occurred this past weekend (Aug. 19-21) at Toronto’s Ashbridges Bay.
Taking on 14 of the best 16U teams in the country at Volleyball Canada’s Youth Beach Nationals, Rugosi and Ketrzynski won all 10 of their matches.
“This feels unreal and like a dream for me because I have never gotten a national beach title before and I never thought I would’ve gotten my first one playing up an age group,” added Rugosi in regard to his most recent achievement.
Rugosi and Ketrzynski earned the National Beach title with a straight-set 21-12, 21-16 win over Matthew Lee and Justin Lui of Ontario in the final.
Earlier, the duo swept past Quebec’s Jonathan Portelance and Yannick Beaudet 21-12, 21-16 in the quarter-finals and Alberta’s Sam Elgert and Matt Neaves 21-11, 21-11 in the semi-finals.
Rugosi and Ketrzynski were only stretched to three sets in one of their 10 matches, when they faced Lee and Lui in the final preliminary round match, losing the opening set 17-21, before rallying back to prevail 21-15, 15-12.
Rugosi, who will attend Etobicoke’s Bishop Allen Academy in the fall, explained how losing that one set enabled them to better face what lay ahead in the final day of play.
“I feel like losing the one set was something that Cole and I needed to do in order to win the title,” he explained. “Because, it was always on our minds. Losing that one set reminded us that we were vulnerable to losing. We knew that we had to play to the best of our abilities every single match.
“I also feel that staying free from all the extra work, and keeping it down to two sets for almost every game, meant that we could focus on the game rather than how hot it was.”
Ketrzynski wholeheartedly agreed.
“I much prefer to win a (match) in two (rather) than in three (sets) because it maximizes your recovery time,” offered Ketrzynski. “And also anything can happen in a third set, so it’s always better to try and go two straight.”
And having fought back from a set down against Lui and Lee meant that they had the confidence when facing them again in the final.
“We both thought that we could beat them because we had complete confidence in each other from the very start,” said Rugosi. “That one set that they took off of us didn’t make us doubt our abilities for one second. We figured out what we did wrong the first day we played them and made sure that it didn’t happen again.”
“Going to the third set with them did put a thought in my mind,” said Ketrzynski. “Not that we’re in trouble, but that we need to put in that extra effort in order to pull off the win.”
And, with Rugosi’s father Franco eyeing the proceedings with his coaching cap on, little was left to chance.
“He saw all the mistakes we were making and he would tell us what they were during timeouts,” revealed Rugosi. “Without him, we wouldn’t have won.”
Pakmen head beach coach Jessy Satti, who was also involved in preparing Rugosi and Ketrzynski for the championships, came away impressed.
“Cole and Peter played with great energy,” observed Satti. “They are big at the net and solid defensively.
“I’m really impressed at how well they played, considering that they are a new pair (and that) they’ve rarely trained with each other,” added Satti. “They are both great players, and having the three-day tournament format, they were really able to get comfortable playing with each other. They got much better day by day.”
Having played together for two tournaments last summer, followed by this entire outdoor season, Ketrzynski and Rugosi grew increasingly comfortable with one another’s tendencies on the beach, which led to improved play on a weekly basis.
“The secret for us, I think, was just getting used to each other more because Cole and I haven’t practiced a lot together,” reflected Rugosi. “I think the Ontario Summer Games (Aug. 12-14, where they placed second to Cole’s brother Xander and Jack McBain) helped a lot because we played together a lot more there, allowing us to get used to each other’s style of play.”
“I felt we were much more confident in what we were doing having played together the past few weekends,” added Ketrzynski.
All those matches improved the duo’s timing, especially when it came to setting up the towering 6-foot-5 Ketrzynski at the net.
“(Ketrzynski’s height) was a big advantage,” concurred Rugosi, “because everyone we played was taller than the people I usually play with in 15U, so he helped a lot blocking and taking up space on the court, making my job easier as a defender.”
“The height certainly helps,” said Ketrzynski, who will attend Toronto’s York Mills Collegiate in September. “However, we did come across a bigger team (in Elgert and Neaves) and we still managed to win,” suggesting height can be helpful, but that talent aces size most days.
In earlier, preliminary round matches, Rugosi and Ketrzynski swept, Cole Irwin and Noel Campfens, 21-12, 21-12; Jackson Dunning and R. Abrams, 21-13, 21-12; Reece Drezzick and Dominic Losier of Alberta, 21-8, 21-8; Portelance and Beaudet, 21-16, 21-15; Pakmen teammates Avy Bath and Saad Shaikh, 21-19, 21-13; and Elgert and Neaves, 21-14, 21-7.
Speaking of Bath and Saad, they gave Pakmen supporters more reason to celebrate, capturing a bronze medal.
After winning five of their first six matches, Bath and Saad out-lasted Zachary Hollands and Zachary Moisan of Quebec 23-25, 21-11, 15-10 in the quarters; lost to Lui and Lee in the semis, 21-13, 21-16; then rebounded to best Elgert and Neaves 21-17, 21-18 for the bronze.
“Saad and Avy played solid all weekend,” said Satti. “I was impressed that they committed to playing beach since they both did provincial team this summer. It was nice to see that they were committed to play because they’ve been partners since 13U.
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