2011/2012 BSCVBC Coaches
Interested in joining BSCVBC as a coach? Please contact susie@burlingamesc.com or karsen@burlingamesc.com!
2011/2012 Coaches*
Stephanie Burbank
14 Orange – Head Coach
Stephanie is entering her seventh season of girls club volleyball! This will be her second year at BSC, while her previous seasons include three at Peninsula Juniors and two at Slainte working with age groups ranging from 12’s to 16’s. In addition, Stephanie was the Assistant Coach for both 18-1 and 16-1 of the boy’s club, Peninsula Tribe. In addition to her club experience, Stephanie has also been Freshman Head Coach at Mercy Burlingame and spent the past four years as either the JV Head Coach or Varsity Assistant Coach at Junipero Serra High School. She has also coached at several elementary schools in the area. Stephanie is IMPACT certified, Fundamentals of Coaching certified (NFHS), and has had Positive Coaching Alliance training.
Lindsay Diggs
16 Hybrid Assistant Coach
Lindsay has been coaching volleyball and basketball since 2006. This will be her second season with BSCVBC, where she coached the 12s team in 2008. Lindsay also has coached Half Moon Bay High School’s Frosh/Soph team. She took the last couple of years off to enjoy her beautiful family. Lindsay is IMPACT certified. She is looking forward to being an assistant coach for Susie Morasci, one of her dearest friends and former High School teammates!
Rachel Freeman
15 Orange – Head Coach
Rachel has been in the Bay Area since 1997 and played four years of volleyball at San Mateo High School. She played 1 year of collegiate volleyball at Bucknell University before transferring to University of the Pacific and starting the Women’s Club Volleyball team. Rachel coached the San Mateo Rec Dept volleyball camp for two years and the Mount Carmel volleyball camp for 2 as well. This past club season she was the assistant coach for the 14 Navy team. She is currently the head Frosh-Soph coach at San Mateo High School.
Besides volleyball, Rachel is pursuing a Master’s degree in Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts at San Francisco State. In her spare time (if that even exists), she can be found at AT&T Park cheering on the Giants!
Cathy Gerona
14 White – Co-Head Coach
16 Orange – Assistant Coach
Cathy grew up in San Francisco; she attended St. John’s elementary school where she learned volleyball in the third grade. She played volleyball all throughout elementary and middle school. She loved volleyball so much she played on the team at Balboa High School. She then took advance volleyball classes at San Francisco State University to enhance her skills more. While taking the class she met new friends and joined club volleyball at San Francisco State University. She is currently a Head Coach for fourth, fifth, and eighth grade girls at Holy Angels School. She has been coaching volleyball for three years now. This will be Cathy’s 4th season with BSC.
Sandra Guerrero
12 Orange – Co-Head Coach
Sandra is a true San Francisco native, adores her city and her Giants. Sandra attended Lowell High School and continued her education at CCSF and SFSU. Sandra is a teacher and has worked with children of all ages, most recently teaching Physical Education at Burke’s and is currently teaching in San Francisco at Guidry Monroe Elementary.
She has been coaching and officiating volleyball for the past 17 years and has coached at a variety of levels and schools including SFB, NDV, St. John’s, Burke’s, and Waldorf. Sandra has been coaching club for the past 11 years, starting with the SF Tremors where she did 3 seasons of 12’s and then formed the San Francisco Volleyball Warriors where she directed and coached, ages 12-14, for 7 years and lead 3 teams to the Junior Olympics/Nationals along with co-coach Denise Lujan in 2007, 2009, and most recently in 2010. This will be Sandra’s 2nd season with BSC and 7th year co-coaching with Denise. Last season Denise and Sandra had a very successful year, taking their 12-1 power team from 24th to 10th.
When Sandra isn’t coaching or teaching she loves spending time with her family and friends. Sandra is looking forwarded to teaming up with Denise for another fabulous season.
Karsen Halai
13 Orange – Head Coach
Co-Club Director
Karsen grew up in Belmont and attended Notre Dame High School where she played on the Varsity volleyball team all four years as an outside hitter and enjoyed the extremely competitive play. During club season she played for San Francisco Juniors for 6 years, attended the Junior Olympics and moved on the play at San Francisco State University as a Gator! She now continues to play in adult tournaments, club and open gyms.
For the past 7 years, Karsen has coached at the Frosh/Soph and Varsity level at San Mateo High School. She coached at PJV for 5 years and was extremely excited to join the BSC family in 2009. This will be her 3rd year at BSC! Karsen has coached all age groups from 13s to 18s and has run numerous summer camps and advanced clinics.
While Karsen isn’t playing, coaching or breathing volleyball, she enjoys spending time with her husband and 2 young children. She also enjoys traveling, shopping, laughing and relaxing with her close family & friends. Karsen would love to go to New Zealand & Tonga in the near future!
Jenna Harrington
14 Navy – Head Coach
Growing up in San Mateo, Jenna played club volleyball for a total of five years with Peninsula Juniors. She attended Notre Dame High School in Belmont where she played her first two years on Junior Varsity, and her final two years on the Varsity team. As a middle blocker, Jenna received the Most Improved award. The Notre Dame Tigers worked hard to get spots in the CCS playoffs every year. After graduating, Jenna went on to play volleyball at Foothill College in Los Altos. As a freshman, she earned the Coast Conference award. After two seasons at Foothill, Jenna transferred to San Jose State University where she currently is studying. This is her second year coaching, and she is looking forward to a great season!
Nancy Jew
14 Orange – Assistant Coach
Raised in San Francisco, Nancy played 3 years of high school Varsity Volleyball. She also enjoyed 3 years of recreational/competition volleyball league at Chinese Recreational Center. This will be her 11th season coaching the 3rd thru 8th grades girls’ volleyball at the private schools and coached 5 seasons of girls’ basketball. She has taken her current volleyball team to ten consecutive championship games.
After attending San Francisco City College/Computer Tech. Institution, Nancy worked for Silicon Technology companies, as a Human Resources Specialist/Relocation.
Away from Volleyball, Nancy enjoys snow skiing, swimming, sewing, arts and crafts, taking her dog out for a walks and shopping. During two decades of her life, Nancy has traveled to New York, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, and Hawaii, Southern California, Las Vegas and the breath taking view of the Arizona’s Grand Canyon. The next place she plans to travel with her family is Paris.
Midori Le
18 Orange – Assistant Coach
Midori has been playing volleyball for 10 years and has been part of 17 seasons of volleyball for school and club combined. She has played for Peninsula Juniors (5 seasons during 2005-2009) and Burlingame Sports Center (2 seasons during 2010-2011), and was an assistant coach for the BSC 13 Orange team last year. She has graduated from Mercy High School Burlingame with being on the school’s varsity team for 3 years. In her senior year, she amassed 370 digs, and was the Burlingame Patch’s Athlete of the Week in October of 2010. Midori’s specialty position is to play as libero. She currently attends the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, studying Animation and Visual Effects, and has continued her dream of volleyball as she was recruited to play for the Urban Knights.
Off the court, Midori enjoys spending time with her family and friends. She loves drawing, art, music, movies, and video games. Upon request and time, she’ll even make you a duct tape wallet!
David Leong
14 White – Co-Head Coach
16 Navy – Head Coach
David Leong was born and raised in San Francisco. In his younger years, he played volleyball competitively in San Francisco, New York, Vancouver, and Los Angeles. In the past 9 years, he has been coaching volleyball at various Catholic schools in San Francisco, and the last 4 years with Mills High School’s Frosh/Soph team. Teaching the right technique is his main goal in applying it on the players in their early age.
His hobbies include practicing Wing Chun, which is a type of Martial Arts, dancing, gardening, biking with his daughter, watching her train and race in Short Track Speed Skating, and watching movies with the family.
Sarah Leong
14 Navy – Assistant Coach
Sarah was born and raised in San Francisco. She attended St. Brigid School in San Francisco, and started playing volleyball in third grade at the age of 8. She first joined club volleyball at SF Tremors at the age of 9 immediately after her school season at St. Brigid was over. She played for the SF Tremors for 2 years, and then transferred over to the SF Juniors, which she played for them for 1 year. She also played for the SF Warriors for 1 year, and she has not played club volleyball since 2006, but she has been consistently playing volleyball at Mills High School. She spent her first 2 years of high school on the Frosh-Soph team, and last 2 years on the Varsity. Due to a crash injury from speed skating, she could not play volleyball on her last year of Varsity and high school. On the side of playing volleyball, she has been helping out her dad coach 8th graders and high school kids. Also, Sarah has been helping her dad out with coaching at BSC. She was also coaching summer volleyball camps held at BSC.
Besides volleyball, you could always find her at the Ice Oasis ice rink in Redwood City or the Yerba Buena ice rink in San Francisco. She is a speed skater, and has been speed skating for only a year and a half. Within that time period, she missed nationals by 0.6 seconds on her time trial. She has been training really hard lately to prepare herself for the next nationals. She is truly passionately for short track speed skating. She is planning on going to college in Utah due to the speed skating programs in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her goal is to go for the Olympics!
Denise Lujan
12 Orange – Co-Head Coach
Susie Morasci
16 Hybrid – Head Coach
15 Orange – Assistant Coach
Co-Club Director
Susie grew up in Half Moon Bay, where she currently resides. She has a Bachelor Degree in Psychology, which he earned from California State University, Sacramento. She has been coaching and playing volleyball for years. She has over 15 seasons of coaching experience ranging from boys and girls, ages 12 to 18, both club and various high schools. This will be her fourth year at BSC, as the club director and coach. Susie brings a passion for the game and for life and mixes it up to make players have a positive experience while working hard to attain their goals. Susie loves watching players improve and bring play to the “next level”. She is IMPACT Certified, Fundamentals of Coaching certified (NFHS), and has had Positive Coaching Alliance training.
When she’s not on the court, she works for a corporate law firm in Palo Alto and is back in school to earn her paralegal certification. If there is any time left after that, she loves to bake, spend time with her friends, family and FaceTime chatting with her brother, sister-in-law 1 and 1/2 year old niece Kaleigh, in Kansas.
Beatrice Pascual
16 Hybrid – Assistant Coach
Bea has been playing volleyball for 10 years. She has coached club at BSC for 2 years and San Mateo High Frosh Soph for the past 2 seasons. She played for the PPSL during grade school and played for SMHS in high school, where she led the Bearcats as a setter and team captain. Bea has played club for Quake City and Peninsula Juniors. Aside from volleyball, Bea works for the Foster City Vibe and attends College of San Mateo. She also enjoys shopping, hanging out with friends, and dancing. She is super excited to coach again for BSC!
Dayna Sakata
13 Orange – Assistant Coach
Danny Shea
14 Orange – Assistant Coach
Danny is currently a senior at Junipero Serra High School. He has been playing volleyball for four years, with three of those years being at the Varsity level. In addition, he has played for Peninsula Tribe 16-1 and 18-1 teams and is currently playing for the Slainte 18-1 club team. Danny participated in the Boy’s National Junior Olympics this past summer in Minneapolis with Slainte 17-1. Danny also was a student assistant coach for Mercy Burlingame’s freshman team in the fall of 2010 and was a volunteer assistant at BSC for the 14-1 team last year. He brings a lot of volleyball experience and enthusiasm to the team this season.
James Spray
18 Orange – Head Coach
This is Mr. Spray’s third year at BSC. He coached the 18-1 team to a silver division finish and four of his players are currently playing at the college level. He has coached at Mercy High School in Burlingame where he complied an 80-29 record with one division championship. He played volleyball in Hawaii and played two years on the men’s club team at College of Notre Dame. James has been a teacher for the last thirteen years and loves how coaching and teaching go hand in hand. The last five years he has coached club teams from 14’s to the 18’s and loves to educate players both on and off the court. Determination, passion, energy, enthusiasm, dedication, and hard work are the corner stones in which James builds strong team work, pride, and accountability.
Chris Tigno
16 Orange – Head Coach
Chris Tigno is in the middle of his fifth year as Head Varsity coach of the San Mateo High School. In his previous four years at San Mateo, the Bearcats have achieved a league championship (with a 16-0 league record), and have made three appearances in the CCS playoffs. Prior to taking the San Mateo Varsity position, Chris was at Notre Dame Belmont, as assistant Frosh Coach (2005) and head Frosh Coach (2006). Chris started club coaching in 2005 with Peninsula Juniors VBC, and coached 14U and 15U club teams there from 2005-2009. At BSC, in 2009, Chis coached the BSC 16 Hybrid team that capped their season with the 16 Club Division Bronze medal at the Reno Far Western Qualifier. Last year, Chris coached the BSC 17-1 Hybrid team.
Chris’ coaching philosophy for high school age players is to focus on improving a player’s ability to think and make decisions on the court for herself, and to give close attention to technique points in order to refine basic skills and improve a player’s consistency and execution. Chris holds a USA Volleyball Coaching Accreditation Level I certification. By day, Chris is a corporate lawyer who works in Burlingame. Chris grew up in the Bay Area, and holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and a law degree from Cal (but still roots for Stanford in the Big Game!).
Fiona Wainwright
15 Orange – Assistant Coach
*partial list
For information on any of our coaches, please feel free to contact Susie or Karsen.