Milana Ready to Shoulder Repeat Run
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
September 29, 2015
ROMEO – Gia Milana’s pace at this stage in her life is as fast-paced as the sport she plays.
Milana, a 6-1½ outside hitter at Romeo, is one of 10 finalists for the 2015 Miss Volleyball award presented by the Michigan Interscholastic Volleyball Coaches Association. There are those who contend she’s the favorite.
Ask Milana about the award and she’s a tad reserved, deflecting the attention given to an athlete who plays a team sport who’s under strong consideration for an individual honor.
“I try not to think about it,” she said. “Volleyball is a team thing for us. I really haven’t thought about it. I don’t think about it. I’d rather win and not think about an individual award.
“It would be the biggest honor. But I’m more focused on making my team better.”
Winning. That’s what Romeo did last season. The Bulldogs won the school’s first MHSAA title, downing Novi in five sets in the Class A Final, and this season they’re off to a 22-4 start and ranked No. 7.
This year’s team is different in many respects. For one, there are just four seniors. Not only did graduation put a premium on the amount of talent coming back, but it also left an opportunity for returning players to take over leadership roles that were so important in 2014.
“Last year at this time,” Milana said, “I feel last year’s team would crush us. We have the potential. Our transitional defense is horrible. To make another run we have to have the mentality that the ball won’t hit the floor.
“If we want to make another run we have to step up our game. One or two players can’t do it. Volleyball is a team-oriented sport.”
After spending six seasons as the junior varsity coach, Stacy Williams is in her 10th as varsity head coach. Williams played the sport at Sterling Heights High School and then Macomb Community College before she got into coaching. Williams credits former Romeo coach Bruce Udvari for nudging her into the profession. And she has nothing but gratitude to her former boss.
Williams also has nothing but praise for her star player.
“She’s a leader by example,” Williams said of Milana. “She’s 100 percent committed to every play. She has some pretty amazing attacks. The cool part of the team is, offensively, we have some real strong players. And then you have Gia. Teams will focus on Gia and it helps in a sense. People are looking at her, and it opens it up for others.”
Among the “others” are juniors Jodie Kelly and Payton Klein, and seniors Erica Labaere, and Nicole Nowack.
This season the libero position, often a strength for most teams, has been a bit of question mark for Williams. She’s used as many as five or six players. Recently, according to Milana, Nowack has shown steady play in that spot.
A back injury hampered Milana’s play at the start of last season. She missed the first 20 games and said it took a while for her to get back into the flow.
This season she hasn’t missed a beat. Through the first 25 games she had 315 kills. Even so, her role is different. Before high school and in her first three high school seasons, Milana was always the younger player facing girls older than her.
“I’m the core now,” she said. “It’s a different experience being the leader. It’s been quite a transition.
“We won states. We’re expected to win it again. We’re doing good in the transition. We know we have to work harder in practice.”
Finding her future
Milana committed to University of Maryland and plans to enroll in January. She chose Maryland because of its coach, Steve Aird, who is in his second season after serving as an assistant at Penn State.
Another reason Milana chose Maryland was its campus. College Park is a rural area, and for a girl from Romeo who spent her first 12 years on a farm, it has its attractions.
“I like the rural, pretty campuses,” she said. “I didn’t want to go to a college that was in the city, like Michigan.
“Maryland was horrible (when it was a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference). Now they’re in the Big Ten and … they’re better. I want to be a part of building a program.”
Maryland is 10-6 overall and 0-2 in the Big Ten.
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Gia Milana, 14, encourages her teammates during last season's Class A MHSAA Final against Novi. (Middle) Milana connects against Temperance Bedford during the Semifinal win.
Bronson Becomes 4th to Complete 4-Peat
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 17, 2018
BATTLE CREEK – With one set standing between them and a fourth straight MHSAA championship Saturday, several members of the Bronson volleyball team spent the break doing the “Cha Cha Slide.”
They were very clearly comfortable in Kellogg Arena. And while a game Unionville-Sebewaing team made them earn it, the Vikings left their second home with that fourth title, defeating the Patriots 25-19, 25-19, 25-23 in the Division 3 Final.
“This team is totally different than our teams of the past,” Bronson coach Jean LaClair said. “They don’t get excited, and we just kind of play calm. We have that calm demeanor all the time, and that sometimes worries me. Even today, they weren’t excited, they just took care of business. That’s one of the things that makes them special.”
Bronson (58-6) became the fourth program in MHSAA history to win at least four volleyball titles in a row, joining Portage Northern (1992-95), Marysville (1997-2004) and Battle Creek St. Philip (1992-95 and 2007-14).
For this group of seniors, however, it started well before they were freshmen.
“I think it really makes you appreciate the team, because we’ve seen so many great players go through this program,” senior Ashton Wronikowski said. “Kiera (Lasky), Jolie (Smoker), me and Paris (Outwater) managed, so when we were 5th and 6th-graders we were on this team. We were riding buses everywhere, we were going to practices, we were in this family since we were in junior high.
“Seeing so many great players go through this program and how the team chemistry is, there’s no words for it. It’s incredible how so many people can just come together and unite for a common goal.”
Lasky and Wronikowski played in all four title victories, and as Lasky astutely pointed out during the post-match press conference, she doesn’t know any other feeling than winning at Kellogg – although there was something different about this one.
“This one is just really bittersweet, I guess,” she said. “Going out with a win and going out with my favorite people. It’s exciting.”
While the Vikings won in a sweep, USA (44-5-1) did make things exciting throughout the match, building multiple leads that required long Bronson runs to overtake. Bronson went on a 12-1 run to take a lead and pull away late in the second set, and trailed 12-6 in the third before gathering itself and putting the match away.
“I’m happy with the way we played; it just wasn’t our day today,” USA coach Teresa Rose said. “This is our first time being (in the Final), and maybe the atmosphere of it, we just couldn’t capitalize sometimes on getting to their attacks and defending as well as we could have. They played with their hearts, and I’m proud of the way they played.”
In the third set, LaClair didn’t have a chance to address her team after it fell behind 12-6.
Lasky took care of that.
While the senior libero didn’t want to repeat what she said in that huddle, it clearly worked.
“I kind of told (LaClair) ‘Just go away. I’ve got this,’” Lasky said. “We really came out of it, got a couple points back, and then after that we were like, ‘OK, next ball, that last play doesn’t matter.’ That got the job done.”
Lasky finished with 14 digs and five assists in her final match for the Vikings, while junior Keona Salesman led the attack with 19 kills. Smoker added 13 kills, Wronikowski had six, and Meagan Lasky had 35 assists.
Rylee Zimmer led USA with 16 kills and 10 digs in her final match for the Patriots. Nichole Schember had 28 assists, and Maci Montgomery had 14 digs.
“I think (the Finals appearance) will do a lot for our program,” Rose said. “I think there’s a lot of kids that want to come and play like Rylee and Nichole and Grace (Williamson), and they see them in the community and they want to be like them eventually. They want to be state champions or runners-up. I think it’s good for our program. Good for our community and our school.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Bronson walls off the top of the net during its Division 3 Final win over Unionville-Sebewaing on Saturday. (Middle) The Vikings hoist a championship trophy for the fourth straight season.