Girls volleyball: Mainzer named new coach at Burlington Central

After going through three girls volleyball coaches in the past four years, Burlington Central hopes it has found more stability with Sam Mainzer.

Mainzer take overs for Kristen Peara. Mainzer has been a health teacher at Central the last four years and involved in the volleyball program each year, working with three different head coaches.

"I learned as much as I could from both the strengths and the weaknesses they brought to the program," Mainzer said. "I am very excited and honored to have been selected as the head volleyball coach at Central High School."

Mainzer started as a Rockets assistant varsity volleyball coach for the 2016-2017 season. She coached at the JV level in the 2017-2018 season and the sophomore level in the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 seasons.

"I had the opportunity to build my own experience as a coach, while developing the fundamentals in our younger players of the program," Mainzer said. "With the experience and knowledge I have gained the last four seasons of coaching in this program, I finally felt ready to take the leap into the head coaching position. I hope to bring some continuity to this program. My plan is to bring success to our program, as I was lucky enough to have in my high school career as a player."

That success came at Cary-Grove where she was the libero on the Trojans' 2009 state championship team. She also played on Cary-Grove's 41-1, state runner-up team the following year before playing college volleyball at Northern Illinois.

"I plan on incorporating my knowledge and experiences of the successful high school volleyball program I was a part of into our program at Central," Mainzer said. "Our girls need to believe we can be a winning team in this tough new conference we have joined. With the right coaching staff that is dedicated to their student-athletes, anything is possible."

Mainzer will coach against not only her former Cary-Grove mentor Patty Langanis in the Fox Valley Conference but also her former Trojans teammate Colleen Smith, newly named coach at Jacobs.

"Sam's experience as player, coach and teacher here at Central has prepared her for this role," Burlington Central athletic director Steve Diversey said. "(We) are excited to have her at the helm and to see her put her vision into place and restore volleyball to what it was and become a major competitor in the Fox Valley."