Coaches

2021 Club Season Coaches

We are pleased to introduce this year's all-star roster of Pacific Coast Club Coaches!

16u Girls Head Coach - Brandon Nguyen

Brandon started playing volleyball in his junior year of high school where he quickly fell in love with the game. Even since then he's been an active member of the indoor, beach, and grass volleyball communities where he coaches, plays and simply engages as a fan in the amateur and professional scenes.

Brandon has coached a variety of different age groups and genders. He coached the New Westminster Hyacks' Junior and Senior Boys team in 2010-2011, the Burnaby North Vikings' Senior Girls team in 2016-2017, and is currently coaching the Little Flower Academy Junior Girls team.

Outside of coaching, Brandon works as a geotechnical engineering consultant at Knight Piésold Ltd, and in his spare time he enjoys ranting about the Canucks!

He looks forward to sharing his knowledge and his passion for the sport with this year's 16U team!

16U Girls Assistant Coach - Jessica Broad

Jessica was born and raised in Oshawa, Ontario before making her big move out west! She attended Durham College from 2013-2016, where she received MVP and OCAA First-Team All-Star recognition each season. In her final year, she was awarded Female Athlete of The Year and left Durham College as the all-time record holder for total kills, aces and second for over-all points.

After her varsity career, Jessica turned to coaching. In 2016, she coached the Durham Attack 18u girls and in 2017 she coached the Seneca Sting Women's Volleyball team. She has also spent the last 12 summers coaching 14u and 15u girls at Madawaska Volleyball Camp in Bancroft, Ontario. This will be Jessica's 3rd season coaching for Pacific Coast. She has coached at the 12U and 15U level, as well as 13/14U Club Lite and countless indoor and beach skills clinics.

15U Girls Head Coach - Kelly Townsend

Kelly enters her third year coaching with PCVC! She led the inaugural U13 team to a Gold medal in T3 in 2019.

Kelly has played volleyball since grade 5 and has coached U13 and U14 for Thunder Volleyball in recent years. As an alum. of Little Flower Academy and Thunder Volleyball, she continued her volleyball career at the University intramural level while swimming for Western's Varsity swim team. As a multi-sport athlete Kelly brings high-level focus on developing building blocks in each individual athlete tailored for where they are at in their own game.

Kelly's approach to coaching fosters a great team atmosphere and support. Kelly loves watching her team come together, develop, and improve throughout their season.

When Kelly isn't coaching, she works as a sales rep in Western Canada representing Speedo, Logica Sport (cycling division), and Lualoha Towels.

15U Girls Assistant Coach - Gillian Ireland

Gillian is a graduate of Littler Flower Academy ('04) and the University of Victoria ('11), where she earned her Education Degree in both Physical Education and History. Gillian is a PE and Fitness teacher at Vancouver College.

Gillian has over eleven years experience coaching volleyball at the Junior Varsity, Varsity and Club level. She spent much of her time coaching on the island at Oak Bay, assistant coach to Varsity and head Coach of Junior Varsity. Once Gillian came back to Vancouver she coached at Crofton House for three years at both the Varsity and Junior Varsity. This is Gillian's second year coaching for Pacific Coast with her sister Kelly.

14U Girls Co-Coach - Willa Zhu

Willa was previously a coach in the Ontario Volleyball Association for 3 years. Coaching has brought her the pleasure of acting as a positive role model for young girls, by motivating them both on and off the court. Her love for the sport began when she was just 8 years old while training with Husky Volleyball club in Connecticut. She went on to earn bronze at Nationals and gold at Provincials playing for Eclipse Volleyball in Toronto. She has been seen as a leader on many teams including a 9man volleyball league where her team claimed the championship title in 2019.
Outside of volleyball, Willa is currently completing her CPA designation and works as a Senior Accountant. Having recently moved to BC in November 2020, she looks forward to exploring and getting acclimated to the West Coast!

14U Girls Co-Coach - Jeremy Bednar

Jeremy played three years with the UBC Men’s volleyball team as a libero. In his second year they won the U sports national championship. Jeremy is now focusing on beach volleyball and plays in tournaments across BC.

Jeremy is in his last year of studies at UBC Sauder School of Business and will be starting his career as an accountant at Deloitte in September 2021.

13u Girls Co-Coach - Lainna Buch

After coaching with Christian at Leaside Volleyball club in Toronto for 4 years, Lainna now enters into her 3rd year of coaching club with PCVC. She is a Certified Development Coach, currently working towards her Advanced Development Coach certification. She brings lots of energy and focus, and is truly passionate about the sport and its athletes.

Lainna is a Graphic Design and Interactive Media student and part-time freelancer. On the side, she has started a charity called Artists4Athletes, which raises funds for Beach Volleyball athletes and their basic athletic needs.

She was a member of the University of Waterloo Warriors Volleyball Team from 2009-2012, and in 2013 she played for the Humber College Hawks Volleyball team. That year she helped the team to win their 6th consecutive OCAA championship and bring home 4th at Nationals.

Lainna will be the coach of Pacific Coast Volleyball's U13 Girls team this year. She is inspired and driven to coach not only players, but young women to be the very best people they can be, and is very excited to bring her strengths to Pacific Coast Volleyball Club athletes

13U Girls Co-Coach - Maddy Cote-Dear

At 15 years old, Maddy began coaching volleyball. She has experience coaching indoor and beach volleyball clinics, along with school and club teams across various ages. For the last 5 seasons, Maddy has been the assistant coach for Crofton House’s varsity volleyball, winning back to back BC Provincials Championships. She has also been the coach of the PCVC u12 girls team for the past two seasons. Maddy is excited to coach the PCVC u13 girls team this upcoming season, and she hopes that she will connect with and positively influence the younger generation of girls volleyball players.

Maddy is a born and raised Vancouverite. As a player, she played four years on Crofton’s varsity team along with playing for Thunder and Ducks volleyball clubs, winning a provincial club championship and a couple provincial all-star awards. She went on to play for the McGill Martlets for one year before hanging up her knee pads and deciding to focus on school and coaching. Outside of coaching, Maddy works at a local high school in the Life Skills program, and she hopes to continue onto grad school studying school psychology in the near future. In her spare time, you can find Maddy searching for dogs to adopt.

12U Girls Co-Coach - Danae Shepard

Danae has a full British Columbia experience of volleyball; she grew up playing club in Kelowna for the Jr. Heat, then moved to North Vancouver in 2014 and played for the Capilano Blues, and in 2017 she was recruited to the UBC Thunderbirds where she helped her team earn a bronze medal at nationals in 2018. She then finished off her 5th and final year with a gold medal at the national championships in March 2019. However, she didn't stay away from volleyball for long after completing her last year...competing in beach volleyball events at Kitsilano this past summer and coaching for VVL and PCVC for the past year.

Danae has been coaching volleyball consistently since she was in high school herself, when she began her experience with volunteering to head coach the OKM Huskies grade 8 girls team along with another fellow senior girls teammate for both her grade 11 and grade 12 year. Since then she has coached at multiple camps, training clinics, and tryouts over the past 5 years.

This will be Danae's first year coaching a club volleyball team. Danae is very enthusiastic, competitive, passionate, and excited to help inspire and develop young female athletes to become their most confident selves.

Danae is currently finishing up her final year of a B.Sc. in Natural Resource Conservation with a major in Science and Management at UBC and is working towards becoming a conservation biologist.

12u Girls Co-Coach - Anna Price

Anna is a recent graduate from UBC where she played all 5 years on the varsity women’s volleyball team, winning two USPORTS National Championships along the way and serving as team captain in her 5th year. Anna has been playing volleyball for over 12 years and coaching for over 7, all in the Vancouver community.

In her spare time, Anna loves to hike, cook for loved ones, and discover new music!

14U Boys Co-Coach- Jared Krause

With over 18 years of experience on both the beach and indoor volleyball courts; having played professionally for over a decade, Jared now brings his knowledge and experience into a coaching role, He also competes domestically on the beach volleyball circuit.

14U Boys Co-Coach - Tim Stubbs

Tim is an NCCP certified coach with over 10 years experience coaching volleyball. As an athlete, Tim spent three years competing in the CCAA, playing with and against some of Canada's top performers.

Tim continues to compete in volleyball, dedicating much of his time to studying and practicing the beach discipline. He is currently pursuing a career in teaching.

13U Boys Head Coach - Mike Hughes

Mike is a man of many talents, but submitting a bio for the Club website is not one of them :P
You'll just have to come meet him personally to learn more about him!

13U Boys Assistant Coach - Felipe Humana-Paredes

Felipe played indoor volleyball at York University from 2008 to 2013. After graduation, he joined the Indoor National B Team and Full Time Training Centre in Gatineau, Quebec. After one year with Team Canada Indoor Volleyball, Felipe decided to switch to beach volleyball l and joined the Canadian Beach National Team in 2015.
In 2015, he won the Canadian Beach Volleyball Championship and played on the FIVB World Tour.

Felipe's coaching experience includes being the Assistant Coach at York University, as well as coaching 13U girls, 13U boys, 16U girls and 17U girls club teams in past years. This year, we are very happy to have Felipe join Mike Hughes in coaching the 13u boys at Pacific Coast!