Men’s Volleyball starts season with new coach
By Raymond Gurbisz
Following a terrific 2012- 2013 season, which included winning the 2013 Skyline Conference Championship and fin- ishing with an impressive 26-8 record overall, the Kean Univer- sity men’s volleyball team will once again look to dominate on the court, this time under new head coach Charlie Ginex.
With the recent promotion of Ginex to head coach, former head coach Don Per- kins, who coached the men’s team since the start of the program in 2011, will take over the head coaching job for the women’s volleyball team at Kean.
Ginex has been an assistant coach for the men’s volleyball team the past two years, helping in bringing the team two Skyline Conference Championships in both seasons. No longer an assistant coach, Ginex will have to adapt to his new job of leading the team.
“You know, I think with everything there’s a little bit of a learning curve,” said Ginex. “I’ve been here at Kean for a couple years now, so I think the fact that I was here with the university and the program certainly helped me a lot.”
Prior to his assistant coaching position at Kean, Ginex also served as an assistant coach for Rutgers- Newark during the 2010- 2011 season, and also as a head coach for many years at the high school level.
“Between the similarities of assistant coach at Kean helping me, and then my experiences as a head coach at a lower level, I think everything put together decreases the severity of the learning curve a little bit,” Ginex explained. “With that being said, there are things to learn and things I’m getting adjusted to, but every day has been a productive one and I’m really excited.”
Aside from adjusting to the new head coaching duties for Ginex, he will also have to deal with the loss of Steve Vahalla, the squad’s Second-Team All-American who graduated last season. Vahalla was named the Skyline Conference’s Player of the Year and Most Valuable Player of the Skyline Championship for the second- consecutive season.
Although losing a key element to the team in Vahalla, majority of the team will re- main the same for the up- coming season. Ginex says despite being a “different” team with the loss of the All- American, he believes the current team is just as good, and has the potential to be even better as a whole.
The team will look to build off of last year’s momentum in hopes of returning to the NCAA Division III tournament, after being eliminated in last year’s tournament to the No. 1 seed in Spring- field College, who went on to win the national championship.
“Now we have a bulls-eye on us. We’re not going to sneak up on anyone any- more and everyone’s going to be out to get us,” said Ginex. “If the guys do what they’re capable of then the sky’s the limit, but it’s not going to be easy, so we’re just going to take it one game at a time”