Forest Park Embarks on Tournament Run with Momentum, Valuable Experience
By
John Vrancic
Special for MHSAA.com
November 5, 2026
HARRIS — Crystal Falls Forest Park brought plenty of momentum going into this week’s Division 4 District volleyball tournament.
The Trojans completed their regular season at 34-4-1 after posting a 3-0 (25-14, 25-10, 25-14) triumph over Bark River-Harris Broncos a week ago. That victory secured for Forest Park a fifth-consecutive Skyline Central Conference title and ran its league winning streak to 43 matches.
The No. 9-ranked Trojans (35-4-1) swept Powers North Central in Wednesday’s District Semifinal and will face District host Felch North Dickinson (19-13-4) for the title at 5 p.m. tonight.
“I think we have a lot of depth,” Trojans coach Bobbie Jo Anderson said that evening. “We have strong hitters across the board. We have a lot of momentum going into the (Division 4) District. We played a lot of good teams. We’ve been competitive and successful against the larger schools. We did everything we could.”
Forest Park is seeking to take another familiar step after finishing 42-2 and reaching the Division 4 Semifinals a year ago. The Trojans have reached the Semifinals in Battle Creek three of the last four seasons.
Sophomore middle hitter Josie Anderson – also among the team’s leading hitters last fall as a freshman – created plenty of issues for the Broncos in last week’s regular-season finale.
“We’ve been working for it,” Anderson said. “We’re starting to pull it together. Winning the conference undefeated gives us a lot of momentum going into the District.”
In addition to earning the SCC title, senior Vienna Price says Forest Park’s victories over rival West Iron County were among highlights this fall.
The Trojans won in four sets at West Iron and swept the Wykons in three at home.
“They’re a pretty good team,” Price added. “Those were big wins for us, but winning the conference was definitely the biggest highlight. We’re super excited about going into the tournaments. We want to play well. We don’t want our season to end.”
Forest Park won the Escanaba Elks Invitational for the third straight time (Oct. 3) and its own invitational (Sept. 19). The Trojans were runners-up in the ‘Rock’ Invite at Gladstone, dropping a 16-25, 28-26, 15-9 decision to No. 5 Hancock in the title match.
Should both teams continue to advance, they would meet in a Regional Final.
“That would be a hard match,” Price said. “We’ve been looking at them all season.”
BR-H coach Brooke Bartley also was impressed with what she saw from the Trojans.
“They are very well-coached,” she said. “They have a great feeder program. The junior high program definitely helps them for varsity. They play a very up-tempo offense.”
The Trojans, who run a 6-2 offense, opened their season at Mount Pleasant where they finished 3-1-1 and placed third at the Heat on the Hardwood at Morey Courts. That run included a win over honorable mention Onekama, loss to No. 3 Traverse City Christian and tie with No. 2 Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart.
“I think that set the tone for the season,” Josie Anderson said. “We’ve been working hard and getting better, which has boosted our confidence. Our schedule has helped us.”
The Trojans also hosted the Class of the Divisions tournament Oct. 17 where they dropped a three-set decision to Division 2 Kingsford and defeated Division 3 honorable mention Calumet and Division 1 Marquette in two sets apiece.
John Vrancic has covered high school sports in the Upper Peninsula since joining the Escanaba Daily Press staff in 1985. He is known most prominently across the peninsula for his extensive coverage of cross country and track & field that frequently appears in newspapers from the Wisconsin border to Lake Huron. He received the James Trethewey Award for Distinguished Service in 2015 from the Upper Peninsula Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association.
PHOTOS (Top) Forest Park’s Vienna Price (4) sets for her teammates during the Trojans’ Oct. 20 win against West Iron County. (Middle) Harper Anderson elevates for a serve. (Photos by Kathy Holm.)
Believe it: Mercy Nets 2nd Finals Title with 'Unbelievable' Comeback
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 18, 2023
BATTLE CREEK – Loretta Vogel had a single word to describe Farmington Hills Mercy’s five-set victory Saturday in the Division 1 Volleyball Final: Unbelievable.
“When we played Marian, to me, that was everything for me,” the Mercy coach said of her team’s Quarterfinal win over the 2022 Division 1 champion. “We planned, we knew what we wanted to do, and we went in there and it was three games – bing, bang, boom, here we go.
“Then it’s like, ‘We’re going to Battle Creek.’ We did our scouting reports, then to get in the Finals, to be down two games, such adversity, unbelievable. I don’t know if it’s going to hit me for six months, what we accomplished. It was unbelievable.”
After dropping the first two sets, Mercy came back to defeat Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern 13-25, 23-25, 25-21, 25-22, 15-12 at Kellogg Arena, adding a second championship to the program’s first won in 2019.
The Marlins finished the season with a 32-15-3 record and entered the postseason outside the top 10 in Division 1. With just two seniors on the roster, three sophomores in the starting lineup and a freshman as one of their leading hitters, one can start to see how Vogel arrived at “unbelievable.”
Of course, on Saturday, they didn’t play like a young, unranked team, especially after going down two sets.
“I think we were a little timid in the first set,” said Mercy junior setter Campbell Flynn, who is committed to Nebraska. “It was our first time actually being in the Finals, so we were all a little nervous. But I think we stayed composed later in the set, and also kept rallies alive.”
Flynn put on a masterclass in game management, finishing with 41 assists, but doing so much more than that.
“Campbell Flynn took over the match,” Northern coach Valerie Lurye said. “We put a lot of our gameplan to making sure (Flynn) couldn’t score, and forcing her to do things like setting other kids. And the other kids showed up. … We forced her to have to do something different, which is what we wanted to do. We did really well Set 2, then Set 3 and 4 she caught on. She’s going to Nebraska for a simple reason, and that’s because she’s able to be someone who takes over the match and understands, ‘Hey, I can’t dump the ball right now. I have other people I have to go to.’ Her movement of the ball is what really threw us off our gameplan.”
The biggest beneficiary of Campbell’s ball movement was freshman Kate Kalczynski, who finished the match with a game-high 25 kills. Five of those kills came during the fifth set.
“Kate, she played amazing today,” Flynn said. “I literally just had to set her the ball and she got kills. I’m so proud of her. She’s only a freshman, but she played a big role. I was just so beyond proud of her.”
Cree Hollier added 10 kills for Mercy, while Angie Butler – playing with a torn meniscus suffered over the summer – had seven kills and 22 digs. One of Butler’s kills came off a wild scramble late in the fourth set and gave her team a 20-18 lead. It was the first bit of distance Mercy was able to create in what had been a back-and-forth set – which the Marlins went on to win.
Vogel said her team started to play like it had nothing to lose after the first two sets, and that flurry certainly backed up that assertion.
The change in attitude and energy didn’t go unnoticed on the other side of the net.
“I would say they just really turned up their energy,” Northern senior Elana Erickson said. “The first two sets, they didn’t have a lot of energy and they couldn’t really serve and pass. They really turned it up though in the third, fourth and fifth set.”
Erickson, who will play at Western Michigan next year, finished with 22 kills and 27 digs to lead Northern (45-8-1). Kendall Hopewell added 16 kills, 11 digs and seven total blocks, while Lexie Stotenbur had 41 assists.
Jillian Collins had 24 digs for Mercy, while Flynn added 15.
PHOTOS (Top) Farmington Hills Mercy surrounds Campbell Flynn (28) in celebration Saturday at Kellogg Arena. (Middle) The Marlins’ Kate Kalczynski (2) connects on a kill attempt with Kendall Hopewell (9) and Riley Loehfelm (16) putting up a block. (Below) FHN’s Madalin Hersman (6) and Flynn meet at the net. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)