Grand Haven Makes Good on Season-Long Expectations by Completing Title Run
By
Jeff Bleiler
Special for MHSAA.com
June 6, 2026
BATTLE CREEK — The Grand Haven High School boys volleyball team has had the proverbial target on its back since entering the season ranked No. 1.
That target proved tough to hit.
The Buccaneers closed out a 41-1 season Saturday at Kellogg Arena with a 3-1 victory in the Division 1 Final over previously-unbeaten Lake Orion. Grand Haven’s 25-19, 25-11, 29-31, 25-18 victory gave the Bucs the first MHSAA Division 1 Finals trophy in boys volleyball.
“They accomplished exactly what they wanted when they started the year,” said Grand Haven coach Jim VanTol. “We knew we were the team to beat all year, and they came into every match knowing that. They got exactly what they came for and what they wanted. They practice hard, they play hard and they like each other, which helps a lot.”
Grand Haven was paced by the inaugural Mr. Volleyball Award winner Caleb Cryst and the power hitting of juniors Alfredo Ellis and Maddox Krugler and sophomore John Cryst.
In between the second and third sets, senior Caleb Cryst was presented with the Mr. Volleyball trophy.
“It’s so special,” he said. “Bringing (the championship) home with Maddox, Fredo, John, all of my teammates. I’ve played with them for years, and that’s our goal.”
VanTol said Cryst is the “perfect guy” to be awarded such an honor and not just because of his volleyball skills, which he will take to Defiance College next year.
“He’s not just a great volleyball player; he’s so good as a leader and motivator on the team,” Van Tol said. “He just loves volleyball and lives and breathes volleyball, and that trophy should go to a guy like that.”
In the opening set, Lake Orion showed why it entered the Final with an unblemished 23-0 record. With seniors Jan Ludvik and Kuba Wolski handling just about all of the outside hitting duties, the Dragons carved out an 18-14 lead.
John Cryst helped right the Grand Haven ship with three kills, and with the score tied at 19-19, he served the next six points with a kill by Caleb Cryst sealing it.
The Bucs then put on a clinic of how to stop Lake Orion’s attack by blocking just about everything that came their way from Ludvik or Wolski. Grand Haven rolled to a 20-6 lead en route to the 25-11 win.
“This is an incredible season to get to the last game of the season like this and be undefeated until today,” Lake Orion coach Tony Scavarda said. “We just wanted the opportunity to go up against the best team in the state. I think we made a good showing. We had one bad set, but other than that we were very competitive.”
Ludvik and Wolski got rolling in the third set, roaring out to a 17-9 lead on Ludvik’s sixth kill of the set.
“We said before the third set just to have fun, enjoy the moment and embrace it,” Ludvik said.
When it seemed as though a fourth set was moments away, Grand Haven punched back with senior Owen Jiang and Caleb Cryst combining for three block-kills that along with two Krugler kills made it 25-24 with senior Carson Moroney serving match point.
Ludvik’s falling away hit rolled along the top of the net and fell on the other side in-bounds to make it 25-25, and Lake Orion survived two more match-point serves as the score reached 29-29. A Grand Haven service error and a Ludvik kill gave Lake Orion life.
“It’s one of those things, every team we play pretty much knows where the ball is going but not every team can stop it,” Scavarda said. “They had the talent and size to slow us down out there. Our guys still got their kills when they needed to and kept us competitive. They definitely made it tough on us because they’re very good on the other side of the net.”
The fourth set was a back-and-forth affair with neither team nudging ahead by more than two points until the Bucs turned a 14-13 deficit into an 18-15 lead. They closed the match on a 12-4 run with a Lake Orion serve into the net ending the match.
Grand Haven had reached three straight state championships in boys volleyball (under the coaches association’s previous direction), falling short each time.
“I feel a lot of adrenaline. I don’t feel like it’s hit me yet,” Caleb Cryst said. “Winning that last point it’s kind of surreal. I’ve been on the opposite side of that the past three years, and to be here feels amazing.”
While Saturday marked the end of Cryst’s high school career, the Bucs return plenty — and will likely have that target etched squarely on their backs again next spring.
“Most of our power guys are back, and our youth program is very strong,” VanTol said. “Our eighth-grade class has two or three or four guys who will push these guys for starting spots.”
PHOTOS (Top) Grand Haven hoists its championship trophy Saturday afternoon at Kellogg Arena. (Middle) Lake Orion’s Cole Essmann (6) leaps to block a Grand Haven kill attempt.
Lake Orion Serving Up Impressive Start as Boys Volleyball Takes Off in Metro Detroit
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
April 21, 2026
Lake Orion volleyball coach Tony Scavarda now has a little more to talk about when he has an information table at the high school's annual eighth-grade orientation each February.
“I’ve usually sat at the table for just girls volleyball, but now it’s also boys,” he said. “I’m trying to get boys knowing in middle school that this is something you can do next year.”
Indeed, as is the case with boys volleyball coaches around the state, Scavarda is trying to spread the word about the newest sport – debuting this spring – to have a postseason sponsored by the MHSAA.
The luxury Scavarda enjoys at Lake Orion compared to many other programs is that there already is a standard of success that can be boasted to players interested in coming out for the team.
In just its second season as a club program last year, Lake Orion advanced to the state semifinals, losing to eventual state champion Hudsonville in what was the final year of boys volleyball being conducted by the state’s coaches association.
Despite only one returner from that team, Lake Orion already looks like a threat to go on another deep run as one of the top teams in Metro Detroit this inaugural season, getting off to a 9-0 start without dropping any sets.
“We had three returners last year that kind of got people in the gym with them before the season to get them some reps and stuff,” Scavarda said. “We didn’t really have that much this year. So they’re more (young) on the court. We have played a lot of games in a short period of time, learning as we go. But they’re improving. It’s just a matter of are they going to improve enough to get us where our expectations are.”
The lone returnee from last year’s semifinal team is senior outside hitter Kuba Wolski, but the Dragons have a good combination of younger players new to the program and others who are performing well in expanded roles after sitting behind the top group last year.
Lake Orion also has an impact newcomer in senior Jan Ludvik, a foreign-exchange student from the Czech Republic who is a tall and powerful outside hitter.
Not only has the excitement of boys volleyball becoming an MHSAA sport buoyed the players this year, but so has last year’s run to the semifinals – making them hungry for more playoff success.
“I think we need to just stay motivated even through our hardships,” Wolski said. “We fell short in the (semifinal match), but this year we have players that are consistent and real and we can make it that far again.”
Lake Orion isn’t the only program off and running during the inaugural MHSAA-sponsored boys volleyball season, as other teams are similarly striving for success this year while trying to establish a foundation to build on in their communities.
“We don’t have any feeder programs going yet,” Scavarda said. “That’s the plan, to come up with some type of camp program or something to get kids, at least at the middle school level, interested in volleyball.”
One of the opponents Lake Orion defeated this season, Auburn Hills Avondale, is in its fourth year overall as a program and is also using this inaugural MHSAA spring to further get the word out.
Avondale head coach Jessica Stefanski said 25 players came out for tryouts and there was enough depth to have a JV program this spring.
“In open gym, there are new guys almost every single day,” Stefanski said. “Even at our middle school, word is getting out because middle schoolers are coming out to see what it’s like. It’s really big at the school.”
Stefanski added that because more boys knew that the sport was going to be MHSAA-sponsored this spring, younger players pushed this year’s group of seniors and made them better once tryouts began in March.
“I think some of them got a little scared,” Stefanski said. “The seniors we have, they’ve been playing for four years now and (younger players) hit a lot harder and faster, which they weren’t prepared for.”
But that has been a good problem to have.
Seeing strength in numbers and competition is all that programs such as Lake Orion, Avondale and first-year teams can ask for as seeds get planted for boys volleyball in the Detroit area and around the state.
“We’re going pretty fast here,” Stefanski said.
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Lake Orion and Auburn Hills Avondale volleyball players battle at the net during a Thursday match. (Middle) Dragons junior Owen Dyer tracks down a loose ball. (Below) Avondale players break out of a timeout. (Photos by Keith Dunlap.)