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Birtwistle Earns #500
GETTYSBURG, Pa.--Saturday afternoon’s victory over the University of Scranton was more than just another win for Eastern Volleyball. By defeating Scranton in three sets, head coach Mark Birtwistle achieved his 500th career victory while his five seniors notched their 100th win together.
Birtwistle, three time AVCA Mid-Atlantic coach of the year, celebrated the milestone with his team and family on the court after the win.
“It feels great,” he said. “It’s been awesome to be around so many great players over the past couple years. It’s a nice milestone and it’s been great being around this group of seniors who got their 100th. I have no idea how that worked out [on the same day]. It goes back to all the kids that have been here and the work they put in. I have to give credit to those guys for working hard and accomplishing that.”
Senior Courtney Reinhold said that it’s been great playing for Birtwistle and with the other seniors these past four seasons. “Coach has been awesome,” she said. “He always has something new set up he wants us to try. He always knows what the other team’s gonna do. He knows what he’s doing and he’s very good at telling us what he wants—what he expects.”
Reinhold led Eastern with 10 kills in both of Saturday’s matches. She said the team had no idea that both milestones overlapped the way they did. “It was crazy,” she said. “We didn’t realize it until last night when we read the article that it was 500 for him and 100 for us. When we saw that we all got really excited and were ready to go for the first match.”
Senior Maria Horning noted how the win Saturday marked a full circle for the team. “I guess it’s just a symbol of how far we’ve come, for me,” she said. “We came to this gym my freshman year for our first tournament, so I’ve just been thinking of our beginnings and how far we’ve come, and how Coach Mark is such a great coach and how he was able to speak into my life and into my game and make me a better player.”
Horning recorded 28 assists in the match against Scranton and 30 in the second match against Gettysburg College. Against Gettysburg, she made seven kills on seven attempts.
After getting over the milestone against Scranton (25-13, 25-14, 25-9) Eastern handled Gettysburg College in three sets as well (25-15, 25-10, 25-11). “Against Scranton we kind of imposed our will a little bit,” Birwistle said. “We were able to get them out of system quite a bit and run our offense and hit pretty well against those guys. And Gettysburg, Gettysburg’s a nice team. They have five quality hitters, but we were, again, able to serve them so that they just couldn’t get in system and really attack against us.
"We picked up a lot of junk that Gettysburg came out with—and if that doesn’t score then the other team gets frustrated, and they didn’t know what to do. You take a team out of their comfort zone and you have the advantage.”
Birwistle also noted the play of freshmen Katrina Pisch and Lauren Sproles and some of his veterans. “You have your stalwarts with Courtney and Maria and Nikki and Kelly doing what they’ve been doing for three years,” he said. “They’re just really solid back there.”
As a team, Eastern scored 19 service aces in Saturday’s matches and recorded a hitting percentage of .439 versus Gettysburg and .369 against Scranton.
When asked if there were another 500 wins on the horizon for Coach Mark Birtwistle, he replied with a laugh. “Well, let’s see,” he said. “It’s taken me 22 years to get 500, so…let’s just take it one game at a time and we’ll go from there.”
Eastern travels to Atlanta, Ga. next weekend for a tournament at Emory University.
