Ohio Wesleyan Magazine - Ohio Wesleyan University

Sports
coaches earn "win leader" titles
By Mark Beckenbach `81
This fall, Ohio Wesleyan
volleyball coach Cynthia
Holliday and football coach
Mike Hollway joined a select
group of mentors who are the
all-time winningest coaches in
their sport at Ohio Wesleyan.
Holliday surpassed Mary
Parker as Ohio Wesleyan’s alltime
wins leader in volleyball
when the Bishops swept John
Carroll in three games on
September 5. The victory also
was her 200 th in 13 seasons at
the Battling Bishop helm.
“I think that Mary Parker
was definitely a pioneer in
women’s sports with her
involvement at Ohio Wesleyan
and the Centennial Athletic
Conference, and I look at
it as an honor to pass her,”
Holliday says. “This is an
individual being recognized,
but it’s part of being a team
– the alumnae who played for
me, and my assistant coach
(Sheila Gisbrecht ’92) who
not only played for me but
has coached with me for 11
years.”
Holliday became Ohio
Wesleyan’s volleyball coach
in 1994, taking over a team
that had won a school-record
26 matches and gone 8-0
in the North Coast Athletic
Conference the year before
but was upset in the semifinals
of the conference tournament.
Under Holliday, the
Bishops took that final step
and won the NCAC title in
1994, and then won another
crown in 1996.
Not surprisingly, some
of the wins that stand out
34 Ohio Wesleyan Magazine
for Holliday were those two
title matches, along with a
few wins from this season
that highlighted the progress
Holliday and
Gisbrecht have
made in returning
the Bishops
to NCAC championshipcaliber.
The first
was the 1994
NCAC championship
match against
Allegheny,
which the
Bishops won
in five games.
“I can still
remember telling someone to
get ready to serve when we
were stuck on 14 points, and
“I remember the
rollercoaster
ride of emotions
from that match
– first we’re up
two games, then
they’re serving
for the match,
then elation.”
all we had to do was side out
and we would win the match,”
Holliday recalls.
The 1996 NCAC title
match
stands out
for a differentreason.
Ohio
Wesleyan
won the
first two
games by
scores of
16-14, but
lost the
second two
games by
scores of
15-8. In the
fifth game,
Wittenberg held a 14-13 lead
and was serving for the match
when the Bishops recorded a
side out and reeled off two
straight points to win by a
16-14 score. “I remember the
rollercoaster ride of emotions
from that match – first we’re
up two games, then they’re
serving for the match, then
elation.”
Standout moments from
this season include a fivegame
win over Denison that
was the Bishops’ first over
the Big Red since 1999, a
come-from-behind win over
Hanover on Hanover’s home
court, and a five-game win
over Wooster in which Ohio
Wesleyan lost the first two
games, then came back to
win the match, pulling off
that feat for the first time
since 1999.