Trenarys Trade Roles, Mendon Reigns On
October 8, 2015
By Wes Morgan
Special for Second Half
Volleyball found Bill Trenary early on. Actually, countless volleyballs did.
“I was getting hit in the head with volleyballs before I could walk,” the Mendon High School varsity coach, now in his second year at the helm, said. “There’s a very good story about me getting knocked out of a walker in this very gym. I started managing when I was in second grade. Ever since then I’ve been in the gym playing volleyball.”
His mother, Michigan High School Volleyball Coaches Association 2014 Hall of Fame inductee Kathy Trenary, spent more than three decades guiding prep squads, most notably a 19-year run at Mendon that netted 721 victories, 10 conference championships, 15 district titles, six regional crowns, trips to six MHSAA Semifinals and championship victories in 1998, 1999 and 2001.
Growing up around the game undoubtedly sparked Bill Trenary’s interest in the sport. Like most boys, however, he was just as engrossed in other athletic and leisurely pursuits. He enjoyed the outdoors, beating his mother on the squash court and obsessively studying opening chess moves — a competitive fire serving as the common thread.
One unique experience in particular was likely what set Bill Trenary up for a successful career in volleyball.
His parents put a premium on experiencing other cultures. His father, Robert Trenary, was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Botswana when Bill was in the eighth grade. That enabled the Trenary family to live abroad for a year. Bill Trenary ended up setting for his school’s varsity team, which played outdoors under the African sun.
Bill and younger brother Matt went on to play intramural volleyball at the University of Michigan.
“They tried to win the championship but could never do it because a lot of kids on the team just wanted to play,” Kathy Trenary said. “I’d go to Ann Arbor and watch them play. That was great.”
It was about that time when Kathy Trenary took over as head coach at Vicksburg. It was an opportunity for Bill Trenary to fire some high-velocity shots inside high school gyms like those he remembered zipping at him as a toddler.
“I was in my 50s at the time and I said, ‘I really need a hitting boy,” she recalled. “I said, ‘would you like to come and be a hitting boy?’ He really identified with how much he liked (volleyball). He played it all growing up, but he maybe never realized how much he liked it until he started to coach it.
“He just found it fascinating; he has always been a gamer.”
In the years since then, Bill Trenary learned from the best, leading to his takeover of the Mendon program in 2014. Kathy Trenary stayed on as his assistant coach and the continuity was evident with the Hornets’ run to the Class D semifinals in 2014, which ended in a 3-0 loss to Battle Creek St. Philip. The arrangement has been seamless for the Hornets, who are currently ranked No. 6 in the latest MIVCA Class D poll.
“When we decided to switch, part of the reason was her being kind to me, I guess,” Bill Trenary said. “She saw me getting better. It was time for me to kind of step into that role. I think I’m a little better game coach because I’m younger and I can push through long Saturday tournaments and make the quick decisions on the court.
“She is absolutely one of the best coaches I’ve ever seen — attention to detail and running practices. She’ll run most of the drills because, heck, she invented most of the drills. Not utilizing her in that role would just be stupid. Me taking that away from her would just cost us points. There’s no reason not to be doing that when we have someone of that caliber.”
A fan of Tom Tango’s book “Playing the Percentages in Baseball,” Bill Trenary strongly believes in analytics and that some statistical aspects of volleyball are often overlooked and undervalued.
As are role players, which there are more of this year than freak athletes. That’s often the case at a small school such as Mendon, where fundamentals help offset height disadvantages.
This year Mendon has a “huge arm” in junior hitter Megann Leighton, exceptional leadership from seniors Brandy DeLeeuw and Emma Eberstein, lockdown play from junior libero Kaley Smith and reliable and consistent setting from junior Cassie Plummer.
“That’s how other teams see us win, but the way we win is when Nancy Steinacker can come and serve a string in our weak rotation,” Bill Trenary pointed out.
The points are in the details.
“We don’t have the best athletes every year, but we have a deep knowledge of the game, which is fun,” he said. “I’ve just tried to build on that. I know we’re using more math, more stats, more film than we have. That’s just a next generation sort of thing, but we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel."
Wes Morgan has reported for the Kalamazoo Gazette, ESPN and ESPNChicago.com, 247Sports and Blue & Gold Illustrated over the last 12 years and is the publisher of JoeInsider.com. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph and Branch counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Mendon coach Bill Trenary, far left, huddles with his team during a match this season. (Middle) Mendon assistant Kathy Trenary, left, remains in the program as her son's assistant. (Photos courtesy of Nicci Plummer.)
'On the Map:' Nwabueze Hitting Rising Bloomfield Hills Into Championship Mix
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
October 30, 2025
BLOOMFIELD HILLS – Those who have kept an eye on the Division 1 state volleyball rankings this season may have done a double take at least a few times throughout the fall.
Was that Bloomfield Hills consistently ranked among the top five and now No. 2 in the latest coaches poll? Ahead of state powers such as Farmington Hills Mercy and Bloomfield Hills Marian?
Yes, that has been the case.
“I think we’ve put ourselves on the map this year,” said senior Kayla Nwabueze.
To those more familiar with Bloomfield Hills, it’s easier to see the biggest reason why the Blackhawks have become such a force – Nwabueze’s transcendent talent.
A finalist for the Miss Volleyball Award, she just surpassed 2,000 career kills, 1,000 career digs and 1,300 career receptions, and owns the school record for kills (2,013 heading into Wednesday’s match against Rochester).
Nwabueze has excelled at multiple positions on the court throughout her high school and club careers. But this season, first-year Bloomfield Hills head coach Brian Kim decided to put Nwabueze exclusively at outside hitter, and she had delivered with 547 kills heading into that Rochester match.
“It allowed her to have a more defined role in our offense,” Kim said. “Middle is her primary position, and she is extremely strong and capable in the middle. But we moved her to the outside to help out our offense.”
Nwabueze didn’t start club volleyball until age 12. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have skills already developed. Nwabueze has an older sister, Ashlea, who played the sport, and the two would constantly do drills and have practice sessions together before Kayla got into club ball.
“We definitely were playing outside,” Kayla said. “She definitely taught me to play volleyball in the backyard and helped me grow in volleyball.”
As much of a surgeon as Nwabueze is on the court – showing exceptional precision with her hitting – she wants to be an even better one off the court one day.
Nwabueze will play college volleyball at Harvard, where she wants to study medicine and ultimately become an orthopedic surgeon.
Nwabueze carries a 4.0 grade-point average attending the prestigious International Academy in Bloomfield Hills, which doesn’t have sports programs and allows students to play sports in the Bloomfield Hills district.
While she had overtures to play for more prominent college volleyball programs, the academic side of things was more of a priority – making Harvard the fit.
“I was just thinking about more than just volleyball and what I wanted to do after the fact,” said Nwabueze, who also considered Yale. “Harvard really had a nice plan for me.”
But there is more business to be taken care of in the coming weeks before Nwabueze starts focusing on that part of her future.
First, she is a legitimate candidate to become the first player in school history to win the Miss Volleyball Award.
More importantly, she wants to help Bloomfield Hills continue what’s been a historic season.
The Black Hawks will play in a District next week at Troy Athens, where a likely District Final matchup with No. 4-ranked and neighbor Bloomfield Hills Marian awaits.
Each team has a bye into Wednesday’s semifinal round, and barring major upsets, they should get through to face each other on Nov. 7.
“It is special to know that I broke some of the records here and set that bar,” Nwabueze said. “We have done so good this year, and we are still going and are still playing hard. I hope we can go farther.”
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.
PHOTO (Top) Bloomfield Hills’ Kayla Nwabueze (19) winds up for a kill attempt this season against Lake Orion. (Photo by Kristina Sikora/KMS Photography. Headshot by Keith Dunlap.)