Irish Cap Dominating Run to Class B Win
November 23, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
BATTLE CREEK – Pontiac Notre Dame Prep volleyball coach Betty Wroubel has won 772 matches over the last 20 seasons. She had brought one other team to an MHSAA championship game, the eventual Class B champion in Fall 2007.
But it’s a fair argument none of her best dominated quite like her Fighting Irish did this fall in finishing off their second MHSAA title – although they had to win one of their toughest matches to finish the run.
Notre Dame, the top-ranked team at the start of the tournament, beat No. 3 North Branch in Tuesday’s Quarterfinal, then No. 2 Wayland in the semi before surviving a late surge by No. 5 Grand Rapids South Christian to win the championship match Saturday in four sets, 25-15, 25-19, 19-25, 25-23.
After falling behind two sets to none, the Sailors (46-12-1) simply wouldn’t go away – and nearly drew even in the fourth after trailing by as many as five points.
But the Irish’s dominant front line was just a little too much to overcome as it finished with 60 kills – good to tie for eighth-most in MHSAA Finals history during the rally-scoring era.
“We’ve been through so many challenges and all of these teams that we’ve been playing, and our team chemistry is just so amazing; we can just trust each other and be confident with ourselves,” Notre Dame junior hitter Katherine Carlson said. “We finished because we can really just trust each other on the court. We were getting our passes, getting our sets (and) we could just go up, be confident, be aggressive and swing.”
Notre Dame’s only losses this fall were to Class A Semifinalist Temperance Bedford and honorable mention Lake Orion. But it wasn’t until the North Branch win Tuesday that Wroubel became convinced her Irish were prepared to finish the week with the program’s second title.
Carlson had with 25 kills Saturday, tying for ninth-most in an MHSAA Final, followed by senior Dani McCormick with 17 and junior Jenna Sassack with 12. The Irish (62-2-1) also had the sixth-most assists in a Finals, 58, and piled up 85 digs with four in double figures led by sophomore Emma Kowalkowski with 20 – tied for 10th most in Finals history.
In the last set alone, Carlson responded to five South Christian points with kills, while McCormick ended two rallies.
“What Katherine Carlson does just amazes me sometimes on the court. I don’t know how she has that court sense, how she knows sometimes where to put the ball. There’s some rallies, and the other team is getting some confidence, and she comes up and puts the ball on the floor and brings it back to us,” Wroubel said. “And Dani McCormick the last four to six weeks has been outstanding.
“In volleyball, if you have one good player out there, you’re tough to beat. You have a couple of them, and you’re going to have to play some darn good defense to knock them off.”
But as the match went on, South Christian’s strengthened. The record book will list a few Sailors performances as well – their 10 blocks make the list, with junior Ashley VanderHorst’s seven ranking among the top individual totals.
South Christian coach Allison Sagraves called Notre Dame the toughest team hers played in the tournament, but the Sailors hung tough after the disappointing start.
That was characteristic of the team’s season. It lost a key middle blocker for the rest of the fall on Oct. 24, which could’ve sunk the Sailors – but instead became a turning point. South Christian was in a bit of a lull at that point, but emerged and didn’t give up a set in the postseason until the championship match.
“I thought we kept fighting no matter what, and the end of Game 4 just showed what these girls have. Just because they had 24, that didn’t mean we were going to roll over and end it,” Sagraves said. “We fought right back, and we really believed we were going to come back and win.
“We talked about that in our timeouts: We’re fighters, and we’re not going to quit, and we’re going to force them to beat us.”
Five seniors started for South Christian, and hitter Taylor Wierenga finished her final high school match with 17 kills, while Cassidy Vredevoogd had 13 and middle Danielle Oeverman had 10. Senior setter Emily Blankespoor had 41 assists, and five Sailors had double-digit digs: Blankespoor and sophomore Abbie Porter with 14 apiece, Vredevoogd with 12 (along with five blocks) and senior Morgan Torres and junior Clarissa VanderHoning with 10 apiece.
Junior Ashley Knutson had 36 assists and 12 digs for Notre Dame, while Carlson added 13 digs and junior Bella Bucchi had 17. Junior Hannah Antosz added 20 assists.
PHOTOS: (Middle) Pontiac Notre Dame Prep hitter Katherine Carlson follows through as her teammates anticipate a kill during Saturday’s championship match. (Middle) The Irish celebrate their first MHSAA championship since 2007. (Below) South Christian’s Danielle Oeverman sends the ball toward the net as two Notre Dame blockers prepare to deflect it.
Lakewood Leader Joins 1,000-Win Club
September 27, 2017
By Dean Holzwarth
Special for Second Half
LAKE ODESSA – Kellie Rowland doesn’t sugarcoat anything when it comes to the hundreds of players she has coached and mentored over 23 seasons.
The longtime Lakewood High School volleyball coach lets players know exactly what she thinks, and it’s a style that has served her well in helping produce one of the most successful programs in the state.
“I’m a highly energetic person, and I’m very black and white,” Rowland said. “I tell it just the way it is, and the girls appreciate that. They would much rather know than trying to guess how I’m feeling.”
Rowland recently joined an elite class of coaches after recording her 1,000th victory on Sept. 9 at the East Kentwood Invitational with a 2-0 win over Grand Rapids Catholic Central.
She is one of only 12 coaches statewide to reach the 1,000 win plateau. Jodi Manore of Temperance-Bedford tops the list and had 1,927 victories entering this season.
Several of Rowland’s former players were in attendance to witness the coaching milestone.
“One thousand wins is a lot of wins, but more than that it’s been the relationships,” Rowland said. “All the girls that came back that evening, and seeing them again as adults and parents and professionals, meant more to me than any single victory.”
Rowland entered the season with a 981-149 record in her 22 seasons at the helm; she led the Vikings from 1991-2002 and then took the program back over in 2009. Her youngest son, Cameron, clued her in to how close she was.
“I don’t keep track,” she said. “I always have to look up my wins and losses because I truly believe in one season at a time and one match at a time. My youngest son reminded me of how many I needed or I would not have known that.”
Lakewood athletic director Mike Quinn said Rowland’s dedication and commitment to her players has had a profound effect on the program.
“Her coaching goes beyond the wins she has accumulated,” he said. “She just has a rapport with all of the girls and she is such a student of the game that she is involved in. I believe she would be just as successful no matter what sport she coached. She just happened to fall into volleyball.
“Kellie is one of the most competitive people you’ll ever meet, but she prepares so well that winning becomes a by-product of everything else that they do. She cares so much about Lakewood volleyball and the impact that it has on our community.”
During her career, the Vikings have won countless league championships, in addition to 10 MHSAA Regional titles, three Finals runner-up finishes and a Class B championship in 2012.
They’ve reached the Finals in three of the past five seasons.
“I’ve been real fortunate,” Rowland said. “I’ve had just dedicated athletes. I can’t say that I’ve had Big Ten recruits, but they work so hard every day to achieve the ultimate goal of trying to win a state championship.”
Multiple past standouts have followed their Lakewood mentor into coach. Chelsea Lake finished her career in 2010 as a Miss Volleyball Award candidate playing middle for the Vikings, and took what she learned from Rowland into her playing career at Cornerstone University. She’s now an assistant coach for the
“I wouldn't be where I am today without her or have had the volleyball career I did if she wasn't my coach,” Lake said. “People who have never had her as a coach fear her and think she is too intense, but in reality she cares so much about her players and believes in them. That passion and love for them (is) why she pushes every single one of her players to be the best they can be. Why do something half-heartedly?
“She demands the most out of you, day in and day out, and by the end of practice you've given more than you ever thought you could,” Lake added, recalling changing shirts midway through every practice because the first was soaked with sweat. “She instills confidence in her players to the point you can walk into any gym and know you worked 10 times harder than anyone else in that gym and deserve to win.”
The buy-in starts early. Lake recalled as a junior starting alongside another junior and four freshmen, with a junior defensive specialist and a fifth freshman coming off the bench. Those freshmen went on to make up the nucleus of Lakewood’s Class B title-winning team in 2012.
“Kellie has built the Lakewood program from the ground up. She gets the young girls to buy into the program, and by the time they're freshmen they're better than most other schools' JV and varsity players,” Lake said. “Therefore, when they're seniors, they're college-type players.
“She knows how to develop kids and as long as Kellie is at the helm, that program will continue to grow, dominate, and flourish under her.”
Senior Lisa Hewitt said Rowland maintains high expectations for every team.
“She never expects anything less than perfection from us,” she said. “She always demands us to be our best 100 percent of the time. She is definitely deserving of her 1,000 wins.”
And Erica Potter, another of six seniors on this year’s squad, was happy to be a part of a special moment for Rowland.
“I think we were all very proud of her for reaching that great achievement, and she’s a great coach,” Potter said. “She’s always pushing us to be our best every day at practice, and she makes us work hard no matter what.”
This year’s team is vying for another trip to the MHSAA Finals after falling short in the Class B championship match a year ago against North Branch.
Lakewood entered this week ranked third in Class B, boasting an impressive 31-4 mark.
“They are playing well, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us,” Rowland said. “We have a new setter on the court after Gabi (Shellenbarger) graduated and we had her for four years. That setter spot is so crucial to a team, so we are still working through a lot of that.”
The seniors understand the path to the Finals is a process.
“We definitely talk about making it to the state finals because we’ve been there twice, and that’s certainly our goal, but we try to take it one match at a time,” Potter said. “We want to look at the big picture, but we can’t get too ahead of ourselves.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Lakewood coach Kellie Rowland celebrates with her team after last season’s Class B Semifinal win over Cadillac. (Middle) Rowland provides instruction during the first set of the 2012 championship match victory.