Entering 2022 season
Gina Schmidt is in her 10th season as the head coach of the Simon Fraser University volleyball program. She took over the leadership role in March of 2013 and has overseen the most consistently successful stretch in school history.
She has an overall win-loss record of 128-89 (.590) at SFU, and a 90-64 mark (.584) in Great Northwest Athletic Conference games. The team has made two NCAA Division II Championship tournament appearances with Schmidt as head coach (2016 and 2021).
The 2021 season marked SFU’s successful return to the court after the cancellation of competition in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. SFU finished 17-9 (11-7 GNAC) and made the first round of the NCAA tournament, falling 3-1 to eventual national semifinalist Western Washington. Opposite Brooke Dexter made an outstanding university volleyball debut, winning GNAC and American Volleyball Coaches Association West Region Freshman of the Year awards, and a place on the AVCA All-America Third Team. She was named All-West Region by the AVCA and the D2 CCA. Senior setter Julia Tays was named an AVCA All-America Honorable Mention and All-West Region.
In just her second season, Schmidt led SFU volleyball to its first winning campaign in a dozen years. The team finished 17-9 overall, 11-7 in GNAC play in 2014. That year, SFU had an impressive 10-3 record at home in the West Gym.
Continuing to build on that success, Simon Fraser finished with a 15-13 record in 2015, including 11 wins in conference action. Libero Alison McKay was selected all-conference first team and the GNAC Defensive Player of the Year, the program’s first major post-season award in the NCAA. Following the end of the season, McKay earned a spot on the Canadian senior national team.
The 2016 season was a historic one at SFU as Schmidt led SFU to a 21-8 (.724) record and the team placed third in the GNAC with a 14-6 mark. SFU earned its first trip to the NCAA Division II Championship, where the team fell to Northwest Nazarene in the quarter-final of the West Region tournament. McKay was again named GNAC Defensive Player of the Year and she was named to the D2 CCA and AVCA All-West Region and All-America teams. McKay became SFU's first NCAA All-American in volleyball.
The program continued to perform at a high level, extending its streak of winning seasons.
The team went 15-13 (12-8 GNAC) in 2017, 15-11 (12-8 GNAC) in 2018, and 17-11 (13-7 GNAC) in 2019. Tessa May was an AVCA All-America Honorable Mention in 2017 and 2018, while Angelica Kilberg was the GNAC Newcomer of the Year in 2017.
From Beaverlodge, Alta., Schmidt was a NCAA Div. I assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Montana prior to joining SFU. During the summers, Schmidt has been involved with the Canadian National Team program in various capacities, including head coaching the Junior National and Senior 'B' Teams. She was also an assistant with the Youth National Team and the Senior A Team at the World Grand Prix in Poland and Czech Republic in 2016.
As a player, Schmidt earned a Business degree while playing in the Pac-10 Conference for the NCAA Division I Oregon State Beavers. She was a member of the Canadian senior national team for several years and also played professionally in the top divisions of France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland as both a hitter and a setter.
See SFU's NCAA records and honours
